Clinging to Blades of Grass
by Eternal Paladin
Summary: Between episodes 5 and 6, Dinah struggles to confront the issues from her mother's death while the Birds try to stop a murderer who preys on kids. Rated for some language. Complete!
1. Chapter 1

Hi. I don't own any of these characters, they probably belong to WB and DC Comics. I'm just borrowing them, and will return them if I must. This fic takes place between the episodes Sins of the Mother and Primal Scream. It doesn't fit into continuity perfectly, but it's not too noticeable.

* * *

Dinah was staring out the window again. Barbara watched as she slowly pushed her favorite, Alfred's famous spaghetti, around the circumference of her plate. It had been a week since Al Hawke had killed Black Canary, a week since Dinah had laughed or cried, a week since the blonde had talked to anyone.

It had gone on long enough.

"Dinah, are you all right?" Barbara asked.

"Fine," she replied distractedly.

"How's school?"

"Fine."

"How's Gabby doing?"

"Fine."

Monosyllabic answers. Never a good sign. Of course, with what Dinah had been through the past few weeks, who could blame the poor kid? It was a bizarre sequence of events to be sure, and added on top of everything else was the normal pain of losing a parent.

"Dinah, it's okay to be sad," she finally said gently. "Grief is a very healthy process. Helena and I don't think any less of you for needing time to mourn."

"I'm not sad," Dinah insisted. She was silent for a few moments and then cocked her head curiously and asked, "Are you? You knew her better than I did..."

"I miss her," Barbara admitted, determined to do something with the attention that the blonde was finally giving her. "I've cried several times since that night."

The teen nodded sympathetically. "It's hard to lose a friend."

"It's hard to lose a mother, as well," the redhead said pointedly.

"So I hear," Dinah said softly, looking away and beginning to play with her food again. "But she wasn't my mother. At least, not in my head, anyways."

"Then why was the first thing you said when you saw her, 'Mom?'" Barbara asked gently.

Dinah's eyes flashed in anger and her hand formed a fist around her fork as she looked back toward her mentor. "Spontaneous recovery."

Barbara rolled her eyes. "I should never have let you take that psychology class."

"It was your idea," the blonde reminded her. "And, while we're on the subject, you're projecting the sadness you feel on to me."

Barbara sighed in frustration. "Dinah, ignoring your feelings won't make them go away."

"I _don't_ have feelings!" Dinah insisted angrily. She paused for a moment and frowned. "That sounded better in my head."

"You're trying to say that your mother wanting to have a relationship with you, and then subsequently having that chance taken away from you again didn't affect you _at all_."

"Yes!" Dinah cried. "Uh, I mean, no... I mean, it did kinda mess me up at first. But it's different. It wasn't so much that she died-" she stopped herself abruptly and began to make designs in the sauce with her fork. "The whole thing was just weird."

"It certainly was a hard situation for you-"

"No, it wasn't," Dinah interrupted without looking up from her plate. "I've been through that before... no big deal."

"You've been through what before?" Barbara gently prodded.

"Her leaving. It's hard the first time. Not so hard after that."

"Hey," the redhead said, reaching across the table to take Dinah's hand left hand. "You can talk to me about that, too."

'Yeah, like it helped the first time.' The teenager pulled her hand away from Barbara's and put it under the table, out of reach. "Nothing to talk about," she said, taking her first bite of the meal.

Barbara sighed and began eating again. She was trying to think of a different way to broach the topic when a blaring of sirens came from the Delphi.

Dinah jumped up and ran towards the computers before Barbara could even open her mouth. Shaking her head, she pulled herself into her chair and maneuvered it towards the ramps. As she got close, Dinah turned off the alarm and she was able to hear the sound of the elevator opening.

"In here, Helena," Barbara called, wheeling to one of the keyboards.

Dinah dutifully stepped back to make room for her mentor. She had already seen what was on the screen, anyway.

It wasn't good.

"Hey, super friends," Helena greeted cheerfully. "Trouble in the city?"

"Another boy was found," Dinah said, pointing at the screen.

"Ah. Knew it had to be serious to make you guys let Alfred's spaghetti get cold."

Dinah glared at her. "It _is_ serious. Some guy is taking kids away from their families! This last boy was abducted from his school yesterday and they found his body in an alley just a few minutes ago."

Helena winced involuntarily. That guilt trip had been almost Oracle-worthy. "How many kids does that make?" she asked gravely, looking over her mentor's shoulder to try to see the screen.

"It's at four now," Barbara said, turning her chair around. She shook her head and sighed in frustration. "And the school board hasn't even told parents, yet! I called that perfidious bureaucrat yesterday, and he told me that it wasn't a 'clear pattern of danger'."

Helena looked at Dinah blankly.

"President of the School Board," she translated.

"Aren't schools supposed to warn parents if _any_ students are abducted or harmed?" Helena asked. "There doesn't have to be a pattern of danger. The law says that they have to tell them if anything's even attempted."

Barbara and Dinah stared at her in shock.

"When you're a vigilante you have to know these things," Helena said in her best English accent.

Barbara stared at her for a few more seconds and then shook it off. "The individual schools have notified the parents. That's just a matter for individual principals. But the murderer hasn't struck the same school twice, so it hasn't done any good. Parents district wide need to be informed. I called some people at the PTA and they made fliers, but it was too late for that boy."

"It's the same guy, isn't it?" Dinah asked.

"Probably," Barbara said. "His body hasn't been examined yet."

Barbara saw the girl's face fall and touched Dinah's arm reassuringly. "We're doing the best that we can. We'll catch this guy." She grinned wickedly. "I didn't just call the PTA, I leaked all the information I have to the _New Gotham Gazette_ and four different local television stations. By this time tomorrow, the whole city will know what's happening and everyone will be watching for him. And that incompetent at the district office will be held accountable for not following procedure."

Dinah and Helena both made mental notes never to mess with Barbara.

"Maybe I should watch a school like Helena," Dinah suggested.

"Nice try," Barbara said, smiling and gently swatting her arm. "You'd do anything to get out of sixth period algebra, wouldn't you?"

Dinah shrugged and tried her best to look like she was trying to look innocent; like she was just a teenager trying to see how much she could get away with. "I just want to help."

It didn't work. The plea still came through in her voice.

The authoritative guardian left and was replaced by a concerned mentor. "Look, there's nothing we can do right now. Let's finish dinner while we wait for the police to finish their report."

"Yeah, okay," the blonde agreed softly, making her way back to the kitchen.

Barbara started to move her electric chair to the ramp, but was stopped by Helena's hand on her arm.

Helena waited until Dinah was out of earshot and said softly, "Hey, how's the Kid?"

The redhead sighed, putting a hand through her hair. "Not good. She won't talk about Carolyn at all. Every time I try to bring up what happened, she gets angry and says that she's already dealt with it. She goes to school, does her homework, trains twice as long as she did before... and does nothing else."

"Hmmm, throwing herself into her work..." Helena tapped her chin with her index finger. "I wonder where she got that?"

Barbara rolled her eyes. "She's actively avoiding dealing with her emotions. That's never a good thing."

Helena nodded, conceding the point. "Are you sure it's not the case, though?"

"It's an especially tragic one, but she's seen worse things since she's been here. I think it's just giving her a safe outlet for her emotions. She can still cry and be angry at someone without facing her mother's death."

"I didn't think of that." The brunette stopped and scratched her head. "I guess I acted the same way when you trained me. Maybe you should let her on sweeps. You always said that it helped me channel my anger."

Barbara looked at her seriously. "And you very nearly beat to death a couple of people. No, it's too soon for her. She's trying so hard to avoid her emotions that she's spinning out of control. She's going to crash any time now, and she can't afford for it to be on sweeps."

Helena leaned to the side to look around the wall and sneak a peak of Dinah morosely picking at her dinner. "You think I should talk to her?"

"It couldn't hurt. You know what she's going through and she looks up to you."

"I'll try at dinner. Speaking of, we better go join her before she gets suspicious and figures out we've been talking about her."

Barbara raised an eyebrow. "You do know that she's a telepath, right?"


	2. Chapter 2

Dinah sat at the table silently, her hands clenched into fists, and tried to hear what Barbara and Helena were saying in the other room. She was angry at them for talking about her behind her back, and angrier still at the fact that they thought she didn't know they were talking about her.

Just how stupid did they think she was?

On second thought, maybe she didn't want to know.

Dinah sighed in frustration and ran a hand through her hair, trying to get a handle on her anger and anxiety. She did feel guilty for thinking such things about the closest thing she had to a family, but mostly she resented them for making her feel that way.

Really, when you looked at it, it wasn't her fault, anyway. First, they had wanted her to go with Canary, then they had said that she couldn't go on sweeps, and now they were talking behind her back. It was enough to make anyone suspicious.

Dinah had tried everything she could think of to make them see things differently. Barbara had said that she could stay home from school for a while, but she'd gone. She had done every scrap of homework her teachers had assigned her, even _Algebra_! She had even begun training _before_ Barbara asked.

But none of it worked. She still felt concern and worry coming from both of them.

It was downright annoying... and as each new measure failed, she could feel herself becoming more and more desperate.

"Hey, Junior Superhero," Helena said, taking a seat across from her. "You didn't eat all of Alfred's spaghetti, did you?"

Embarrassed, Dinah finally realized how little she had eaten. "Don't worry. I was sure to leave you plenty."

For a split second, Barbara froze mid-transfer from her wheelchair to her chair at the table to exchange worried glances with Helena, confusing the teen.

"You know," the brunette started slowly, "I was just kidding. You don't have to worry about me. If... well, let's just say you were sad about something... you shouldn't worry about bringing it up, even if you think it might make me sad, too. I'm a big girl. I can deal with missing my... spaghetti."

Barbara groaned.

Helena looked over at her questioningly and shrugged.

"I'm fine," Dinah tried to assure them both. "This case is bothering me a little bit, but-"

"Are you sure it's the case?" Helena asked her seriously. "Couldn't it just be... you know, that the case is giving you an outlet for your emotions so that you can cry and be angry at someone without facing your mother's death?"

Barbara glared at Helena as she ate.

"Geez, Hel, where'd you get something like that?" Dinah asked, trying not to grin. "Dr. Phil?"

The blonde watched with veiled amusement as her mentor dropped her fork.

"You know, on second thought, something that deep could've only come from Alfred."

Barbara almost choked.

Dinah stood up and pounded her back helpfully.

"I know what you're going through," Helena said. "When I lost my mom, I lashed out at everyone-"

"Do I look like I'm lashing out?" Dinah demanded. "I. Am. FINE!" she insisted, stomping to accentuate each word.

Realizing how that must have looked and sounded, she closed her eyes tightly for a few seconds and added, "I admit that I'm frustrated. But that's because I've been doing everything right and you still won't let me on sweeps!"

"You need time to deal with this," Barbara said gently, waving the blonde back to her seat. "You can't carry your anger at Carolyn's death with you and still be effective on sweeps."

"You guys are assuming that I _wanted_ to go with her," Dinah said, making no move to sit back down. "I didn't. _You're_ the ones that wanted me go with her."

Too late Dinah realized that she had sounded like she was glad her mother was gone.

Well, maybe she was.

"She was your mom," Helena insisted. "How could you not have wanted to get to know her?"

"Why?" Dinah demanded, eyes flashing. "Do you want to get to know your dad?"

"Leave him out of this," the brunette said between clenched teeth. "He left right when me and Barbara needed him!"

"And the difference is...?"

"Enough," Barbara said quickly. "This stopped being productive a long time ago."

"That's what I've been saying!" Dinah insisted exasperatedly.

Before Helena or Barbara could respond, something that sounded suspiciously like a school bell came from the Delphi.

"What's that?" Helena asked, rising from her seat.

"Detective Reese must have triggered the bat ring," Barbara answered, again making the transfer between chairs. "I made it different from the other alarms so we could know another body hadn't shown up."

"Did you have to make it sound like the bell at school?" Dinah asked. "I have this strange urge to finish up the last of my homework."

"It's what I had access to," Barbara said with a shrug. "Wait, you're still trying to complete homework assignments as the bell rings?"

"You have access to _everything_," Dinah said, frowning. "You're you."

"You didn't answer the-"

"I'll take care of the alarm," Helena said, beginning to exit the room. "You guys just finish your dinner."

"Did I just hear you suggest that you would touch _my_ computers _without_ my supervision?" Barbara demanded, her tone clearly telling both her protégés that there wasn't a safe answer.

Helena froze. "Uh... of course not. I would never say something so stupid."

"Not stupid," Barbara said, maneuvering her chair ahead of Helena. "Suicidal."

"Right," Helena said, following meekly behind.

Dinah trailed them both. "When do I get to answer the ring?" she asked.

Barbara sighed. She pushed her chair to the screen and started typing on the keyboard, making a location appear on the screen. "When you start going on sweeps."

"And when will that be?"

"It will be when Helena and I both think you're ready to be back on the street."

"I repeat..."

"Look, Dinah," Barbara said as gently as she could manage, "it's not that we think you're doing something wrong or that there's a magic amount of time that will pass before you've dealt with Carolyn's death. It's the simple fact that we can't expect you to be okay so soon after it. And it won't be safe, for you, Helena, or anyone else, to have you out there if your mind or your heart isn't on the job."

Dinah took a deep breath and sighed in defeat. If she pushed harder, she would only convince them that she was angry. "Okay. Fine."

She took a few steps toward kitchen, and then stopped and looked around herself in confusion.

Barbara laughed. "She was gone by the time I told you that you could answer the bat ring when you started sweeps."

"So this is how Detective Reese feels," Dinah said bitterly. "I thought there was a rule against using powers to settle domestic disputes."

"Settling disputes," Barbara corrected, "not running away screaming from them."

Dinah frowned. "I would've noticed if she'd run screaming."

"Don't take it personally. She just doesn't like conversations involving feelings."

Dinah snorted. "Ya think?"

Barbara chuckled. "Just go finish your dinner. Reese is waiting for Helena near the alley where the latest body was found. I want to see if he has any more information for us before I join you."

"How can you eat after something like that?" Dinah asked, frowning.

Barbara paused for a few moments before answering. "You never get used to the injustice of it all... the absurdity and the cruelty. But, with enough years on this job, you do get used to the gore."

Slightly disconcerted, Dinah went back to the kitchen and continued pushing the food around her plate.

* * *

That discussion had been getting heated. Helena had waited just long enough to see the address flash across the screen, then she was outta there!

Of course, the kid was going to be mad at her for leaving during the middle of an argument. And, she had to admit, it hadn't been exactly fair to leave before hearing her out completely. Maybe she'd apologize later.

Eh, probably not.

Huntress hopped across the rooftops where she was able, and, heh, she was the Huntress, so she was able to quite a bit. But as she got closer to Reese's location, she noticed that the building Reese had chosen to wait behind was only two stories high and had skyscrapers on either side. So, to maintain her level of mystique, she had to go to ground level, walk to the building, jump to the roof _and then_ swoop down.

She was sure Reese did it on purpose.

Which, of course, only made her want to scare him that much more.

He was standing with his arms crossed, waiting with his back against the wall. She waited, crouched above him in the shadows, for him to look towards the street. When his head was finally turned, she landed silently in front of him and waited impatiently for him to turn back.

But it was all worth it to see him jump.

"Huntress!"

"You called, Detective?"

"Regretting it right now," Reese said, shaking his head. "Would it kill you to land in front of me every once in a while?"

"What?" Huntress asked sarcastically. "And miss this wonderful reception?"

Reese sighed and put his hands in his pockets. "Do you know about this latest string of murders?"

Huntress pouted like she was insulted... and then repeated the information Oracle was feeding her. "Four murders, if you include the boy found just now. All boys with blond to sandy hair, aged four to seven, taken from their schools after the day had ended. If you consider the lack of witnesses, it's highly probable that they went willingly."

"Lack of witnesses?" Reese repeated skeptically. "Highly probable?"

Huntress knew what he was getting at, but ignored it. She sighed in mock exasperation and continued to repeat Oracle. "It would have made a scene if the children had not gone willingly, and there would be more witnesses."

Reese shook his head again. "The 'lack of witnesses' is actually what I wanted to talk to you about. Now, we questioned all of the teachers and a lot of the students at the schools and some of them report seeing a strange man around the time that the kids were abducted."

"You have a description?" Huntress asked eagerly.

"No. That's the strange part. All of the descriptions were either too vague to be helpful, or they all contradicted one another."

"So... where do I come in?"

Reese rubbed his head with one hand, and looked distinctly uncomfortable. "I was wondering if this guy could be a metahuman."

"You think the perp's changing their appearance," Helena stated. "I'll look into it."

She paused for a moment, making sure she was actually hearing footsteps coming their way. "As always, Detective, a pleasure."

The footsteps came closer and Reese finally heard them. He looked towards them, and when he looked back, she was gone.

* * *

Before Helena had even finished talking to Detective Reese, Dinah made some excuse about homework to leave the room. Considering the whole school bell incident, it was believable cover. Dinah shut the door behind her and sighed; that probably wasn't the end of it, either. Barbara never forgot _anything_ and would probably want to check her homework in the morning.

Dinah halfheartedly opened up a few books, but everything that was due the next day was already done and she didn't really have the energy to do anything else. She just felt so tired all of a sudden...

Resignedly, she undressed and put her pajamas on, shaking her head in disgust at herself the whole time. She was going to sleep right after dinner! That was _so_ not cool.

But, to Dinah's consternation, she found that as soon as the light was out, she was too afraid to close her eyes. Instead, she put on her headphones and began surfing for a good station. But lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, only made her think. And the truth of the matter was that she hadn't slept through an entire night since Canary had come for her.

Black Canary. Her mother.

Sure. Whenever she felt like it, anyways.

Barbara probably knew that she wasn't sleeping at night. It was hard to hide anything from the Oracle. Dinah laughed to herself a little. It was even harder to hide anything from the person who raised Helena Kyle through her teen years.

Barbara probably thought she was having nightmares about her mother's death like Helena had.

Dinah sighed sadly. If only it were that simple. But in her nightmares, her mother showed up alive and well and wanted to get to know her again.

And it was so terrifying that she was afraid to go sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Barbara was already sitting at the table, dressed and enjoying a cup of coffee, as Dinah groggily clomped down the stairs. She made a valiant effort not to scowl at how well-rested and awake her mentor appeared, but sometimes it was nauseating how much energy Barbara had in the morning.

Dinah took a few steps closer and unconsciously slowed her pace as she noticed how stiff Barbara was sitting. The coffee she was sipping didn't help either, as she seemed to raise the coffee mug to her lips at too regular of intervals. Her stomach clenched itself into knots as she finally got a good look at her mentor. The look on Barbara's face was somewhere between concerned and annoyed, and Dinah could feel herself becoming increasingly distressed as she wondered just where on the continuum Barbara actually was.

'If you avoid her now it'll only be worse later,' she thought, willing herself forward. 'And it's only Barbara. What's the worst she's done to you?'

Each step taking more effort than the last, Dinah finally sat down across the table from Barbara and waited cautiously for the worst.

"You went to bed a little early last night," Barbara commented after a few moments.

Dinah cursed to herself as she remembered how soon she had turned out the light. 'Stay calm. Why was the light out if I wasn't sleeping? ...Okay, I was definitely sleeping then. Maybe I don't feel well. Oh, man, I can't train if I'm sick. I had a project that I stayed up late working on! Stupid! Then the light would've been _on_, not off! Maybe I had a project _night before last_ and stayed up so I was tired last night. Perfect!'

Barbara was still waiting for an answer.

"I had a math test... _quiz_ yesterday," she corrected hurriedly, realizing that Barbara would have known about a test, "and I stayed up studying for it so I was tired last night and decided to just go to bed."

Barbara raised an eyebrow. "You look like you didn't sleep at all."

She hadn't.

Dinah just shrugged and looked down, suddenly unable to meet her mentor's gaze. "Guess I slept too much."

"A rare occurrence in this household," Alfred said, setting a plate of scrambled eggs and a glass of milk in front of her.

"Thanks," Dinah said automatically, frowning as she tried to figure out if she'd imagined the skepticism in his voice. Just whose side was he on, anyways? "What'd Detective Reese have to say?" she finally asked.

Barbara sighed and decided to let her change the subject. "He thinks the abductor could be meta because the descriptions of him don't match one another."

"You don't sound convinced," Dinah said, beginning to eat. She was surprisingly hungry after not eating much at dinner.

"I'm not. Descriptions never match exactly. Memories aren't perfect-"

"Unless you have a photographic memory," Dinah interjected, looking pointedly at her mentor.

"Even then," Barbara said seriously. "Even assuming all of the witnesses got a good look at the same thing, they would still describe it differently. And on top of all of that, the police are asking people _a day after_ the abduction if they saw _anyone_ suspicious. The witnesses are likely describing many different people, since not everyone views the same things as suspicious."

"But people should notice some creepy guy hanging around little kids," Dinah pointed out.

"Not necessarily," Barbara explained. "If the murderer has an average face, and likely he does because kids wouldn't go with someone of whom they were already afraid, parents and teachers might assume he's supposed to be there or even think that they've seen him before. And, if his face is average enough, that alone would account for all the discrepancies in the descriptions."

Dinah nodded and then reconsidered. "Wait, I don't understand that last part. How could a regular face make people see different things?"

"It wouldn't," Barbara clarified. "But if it's average, then it's forgettable."

Dinah frowned in open confusion. "But if people forgot... then they wouldn't tell the police that they'd seen someone... right?"

Barbara smiled and shook her head. "Not everyone's as honest as that. There was a survey once, where half of the American public thought that the Public Affairs Act of 1975 should be repealed or was doing a good job," she said as if that ended the matter.

"Well... was it a good act or whatever?"

Barbara sighed in exasperation and rubbed her temples for a few moments before she answered. "It doesn't exist," she said, as if her point had been obvious. "People just wanted to help and express their opinion."

"So the descriptions that the police have might not be telling us anything," Dinah ventured slowly.

"Exactly."

"So the guy's not meta?"

"Well, he could be, but I doubt he has the ability to change his appearance."

"But Detective Reese thinks he can."

"Right."

"So we still don't know anything!" Dinah cried, slamming her fist against the table.

Barbara started and raised both hands palms outward. "Easy, Dinah."

"But we're not getting anywhere!" Dinah insisted, running her fingers through her hair.

"We're making progress," Barbara said. "The morning news shows have all reported on the murders and it was on the front page of the newspaper, so all of the teachers and parents should be on alert now. By this time tomorrow, the public will have put the pressure on the police department and there will be undercover officers at every school. On top of that, the perpetrator hasn't been to any of the elementary schools twice. The field's narrowing, and even if we don't catch him right away, no one else will be hurt."

Dinah wasn't convinced, but taking out her frustration on Barbara wouldn't help matters, either. "Well, that's good at least," she said quietly, already ashamed of her outburst. "I'm gonna go finish getting ready for school."

Barbara watched her young charge go, walking so quickly that she was almost running away. Something was definitely wrong there, and it was more than just Dinah trying to escape her emotions... Although that _would_ explain her recent sleeping patterns...

"She seems quite nervous these days," Alfred commented, clearing the table.

"Helena was the same way," Barbara said, looking up at him. "Always waiting for the other shoe to fall."

Alfred saw her frown. "And that bothers you."

"It's not her," she said, sinking against her chair. "Dinah's been through so much for someone her age... more than I realized at first. But she's always seemed so open and trusting."

"But she was not," Alfred pointed out. "She did not trust you with her true last name for many weeks."

"Even when she lied about her last name, she let us see the real her," Barbara insisted. "And for someone who felt abandoned by her mother and then wasn't accepted by her foster family... that must have taken exceptional courage. If we refused her because of her last name, we would only be refusing the last name. If we refused her because of the true self that she showed us, we would be refusing who she is."

"Now that courage is gone and she has closed herself away."

"Exactly. The problem is, I can't figure out why," she said, beginning to feel a headache coming on. "And the only way I'm going to find out why she won't open herself up, is if she decides to open up and tells me."

"Perhaps her mother's return made her confront her previous abandonment," Alfred suggested.

"It's possible," Barbara said slowly, "but it doesn't explain why she won't talk to me or Helena about it. Even if she did feel abandoned, we've always accepted her."

"Perhaps she is afraid that you will view her differently since you know who her mother was."

"We always knew that her mother left her in foster care," Barbara said, frowning anew. "Having known her mother should make her think that we care about her more, not less."

"That is true, Miss Barbara," Alfred agreed, beginning to move to the kitchen. "Whatever the problem, I'm sure you are quite capable of finding it and solving it."

"Thanks, Alfred," Barbara said, smiling. Then she went to find her aforementioned charge before she made them both late for school.

* * *

'This day just sucks,' Dinah thought in frustration as she made her way through the crowded cafeteria to Gabby's table.

First, she had blanked during a quiz because she was so tired. An _English_ quiz, no less! Barbara was gonna be pissed. Then, between classes, she had run straight into Matt Kendle, only _the_ cutest guy in school. _Then_, in P.E., she'd actually fallen asleep as her teacher explained... well, whatever she had been explaining when she fell asleep. And, on top of everything else, she had dreamed that her mother came back and-

Dinah caught herself right before she ran into two jocks arguing in the aisle. She tried to keep her food from falling off the tray, and if it had to fall, keep it from falling all over herself or someone else. In a few seconds she had it all under control. Blushing, she covertly looked around to see if anyone else had noticed.

"No, I can't go," some jock right in front of her complained.

"Why not?" a somewhat skinnier jock named John asked. "You said yesterday that everything was cool."

"_Yesterday_ it was. But then some chick with a dad who's a policeman made handouts for everyone's parents at my brother's school. So _now_, I have to pick him up and stay home to baby-sit him."

Dinah tried to move passed them, but they were taking up the whole aisle.

"Aw, man! That sucks."

"Tell me about it! Some guy's taking kids? Ask me if I care. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, that guy can _have_ my brother!"

"Hey!" Dinah demanded. "Do you have _any_ idea what happens to those kids?!"

She wasn't sure who was more surprised, the jock or herself.

"Hey! Do you have _any_ what it's like to mind your own business?" the guy taunted.

Dinah flushed in anger and embarrassment... and then there was just anger. "How can you be so selfish? Everyone deserves a good home with people who love them!"

"Whoa, there, zipper girl. I think you're taking this a little too seriously. It was just four kids-"

"Just four kids?!" Dinah practically screamed, edging forward until her tray was almost touching his chest. "Have you seen the pictures of the bodies? Some guy is taking kids away from families they want to be with and you won't even defend your own brother!"

People were beginning to stop and stare at the odd scene in front of them. Dinah had always been so quiet, and even though she was a little bit shy, she always seemed to have a smile for everyone. Seeing her pick a fight with a football player who had to outweigh her by a good fifty pounds looked so off that it was almost humorous.

Gabby joined the crowd, looking for a good time to pull her Dinah away.

"Your friend's lost it!" a junior named Patrick said, his voice oddly hushed.

The jock, easily a foot taller than Dinah, was beginning to get seriously freaked out by this weird girl who had always seemed to be so quiet. In near desperation, he pushed her away from him.

The food on her tray went flying everywhere as Dinah stumbled backwards, dropping her tray. She stared at him a moment in disbelief... and then slugged him right in the eye.

The jock (Rick, some part of her mind registered) fell backwards. Sluggishly, he got to his hands and knees and made like he was going to get up.

Dinah, her training kicking in, moved in closer to take away the advantage that his height and longer reach gave him.

The skinny friend pushed her away from Rick, so she clocked him one, too.

And then the whole football team seemed to join in, half of them trying to get at her and half holding their friends back in fear that this obviously insane girl would be murdered right in front of them.

Dinah was trying to determine friend from enemy when she felt someone on her back, trying to pull her away. She jabbed her elbow backwards and felt it go a ways into something soft. She heard a low 'whoosh' that meant she had knocked the air out of somebody, and the arms around let go. She whirled around with a raised fist, ready to strike again.

Gabby was bent over on the ground, wheezing, one arm raised to shield herself and the other around her ribs. She couldn't say anything, but her eyes held a mixture of surprise, betrayal, and fear.

"Gabby! I'm... I'm sorry," Dinah stuttered, lowering her fist and taking a step forward.

That's when the principal appeared in the doorway with Barbara in tow.

Things just went downhill from there.


	4. Chapter 4

I still don't own any of the characters except for a boring murderer.

* * *

As Barbara tried to teach her two remaining classes before the end of the day, she couldn't help but let her mind stray to Dinah. There was no denying that she was angry... well, more like livid... but she was also concerned. She had never expected that kind of behavior from Dinah; blind rage was more in Helena's department.

Hearing the details of the assault from the principal's office only made her even more worried. Dinah clearly was transferring her anger towards Al Hawke to Rick and John (the two boys on the football team) and who knew who else!

"Ms. Gordon?" Patrick asked, pulling Barbara from her reverie. "I don't get this part. I mean, this guy, Meursault, killed someone and Camus makes it sound like he was executed because he didn't cry at his mom's funeral."

"That's the whole point!" Barbara snapped impatiently. "Read it again if you don't get it!"

Patrick's jaw dropped open and he stared at her wide-eyed for several seconds. Then he started to blush in embarrassment and tried to hide it by putting his face very close to the book.

'Come on, Gordon,' Barbara thought to herself, cringing. 'You're more controlled than this; stop taking out your frustrations on innocent people. This is your Honors class. Patrick was only trying to start a class discussion. You want to encourage those, not make the students feel embarrassed for asking.'

Barbara took several deep, cleansing breaths and tried to get her anger under control. She had been irritable the entire class because she was trying to think of what to do about Dinah. She had assured everyone that there would be consequences for her young charge's behavior, but as her fifth period passed she kept wondering what they would be.

If it had been Helena (and it had been many times), she would have asked for her side of the story. Then, if she refused to give it, she would ground her for an eternity to make Helena blow up and start mouthing off. Once Helena was talking, she could maneuver the conversation easily enough, and end it by grounding the brunette for much less than originally planned. It set the precedent that it was all right to talk even if she was angry, and showed that good results generally followed talking to her mentor.

However, for that strategy to work, Dinah had to lose her patience and continue an argument long enough for something to rise to the surface. As it was, Dinah had the habit of becoming increasingly resigned and meek as an argument stretched.

Additionally, the more Barbara thought about it, the more she became convinced that grounding Dinah at all would only cause more problems. The blonde desperately needed to open up to someone, and keeping her from her friends might take away her opportunity. At this point, Barbara would settle for Dinah talking with anyone, even if it wasn't her.

Grounding Dinah would not even be much of a punishment anyway, because she hadn't so much as left the clocktower once since Canary had died.

Briefly Barbara considered halting Dinah's training since she had already stopped her charge from going on sweeps, but as that was the only way Dinah was currently releasing any of her rage it seemed to be the wrong move, as well.

Meanwhile, the students in Barbara's class seemed shocked into silence. They all read their copies of _The Stranger_ quietly to themselves, or at least pretended that they were. The only sounds were those of some low murmuring about "stupid existentialist authors" and "crazy teachers". When the bell finally rang, they all shuffled out quietly and a new class, all freshmen, entered and sat down. Apparently they had been warned by the last class, because no one ventured a word.

Before the late bell rang, two girls entered giggling with one another.

Barbara looked up at them sharply, but before she could say anything, a boy sitting in the front hissed at them urgently, whispering something Barbara couldn't hear. The two girls stopped their giggling and talking abruptly, and looked back at their teacher curiously for a few moments. The look on Barbara's face sent them scurrying to their seats.

The rest of the students sat solemnly with their hands folded in their laps and waited to be told what to do. Most of them would not even make eye contact with her.

"Why don't you all take out your copies of _To Kill a Mockingbird_ and read silently for the rest of class?" Barbara suggested, with only their best interests at heart. Anything involving speech was likely to result in her losing her temper again.

There was a small murmur of backpack zippers and a rattle of paper as her students scrambled to comply, and Barbara didn't pay them any more attention for the rest of the period.

Instead, she just thought of what she would tell Dinah and how she could get her to open up. Students had fifteen minutes between the end of school and the start of detention (which her protégé would be attending regularly for the next three weeks), and Barbara had made it clear that she would be spending those fifteen minutes with her.

Sighing to herself, Barbara thought, 'You know, it's a good thing I had two more classes to teach. At least it's letting me get some sort of handle on my anger before I talk to Dinah.'

"Uh, Ms. Gordon?" a brave student named Christina ventured, raising her hand.

"What?!" Barbara demanded.

Christina, one of the few students with an 'A' in the class, gulped.

The students next to her whispered encouragement and one reached out and held her hand.

'And Huntress thinks she's terrifying!' Barbara thought to herself. 'She's obviously never met Ms. Gordon!'

Out loud, Barbara said, "I'm sorry, Christina. I didn't mean to snap at you like that. You had a question?"

The poor girl worked her mouth several times before anything came out. "Um, see, the bell... kind of rang three minutes ago. Are you going to dismiss us?"

Barbara raised her eyebrows in surprise and checked her watch. At least it explained why she had the sudden urge to see if Reese had any new information. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"You're kind of scary right now," she said frankly, visibly bracing herself for the worst.

Barbara laughed, which made Christina sigh in relief. "Class dismissed."

As the freshmen filed out of the classroom, Barbara noticed several of them patting Christina on the back, carefully avoiding their teacher's gaze. Christina herself seemed almost shell-shocked, gathering her things as if she was in a daze. Two of her friends helped her and guided her out the door.

Barbara heard her warn someone in the hall, "Don't go in there unless you have to. Seriously. Picture a redheaded Trunchbull that's as smart as Professor Snape."

Barbara laughed at that, too.

A moment later, a very meek and slightly pale Dinah walked through the doorway. She kept her eyes directed toward the ground and wordlessly sat at one of the desks.

Barbara waited for a few seconds to see if Dinah would say anything. When she didn't, Barbara said, "I want to hear your side of the story."

Dinah shrugged. "Happened like they said it did," she said softly, still not looking up.

"You were quiet the whole time in the principal's office. I want to hear it from you."

Dinah squirmed for a few moments, and then sighed in frustration. "I lost it, okay? You were right about not going on sweeps and not being in control and now I can't help at all!"

Barbara was momentarily taken aback by the blonde's sudden outburst. As the silence lengthened, Dinah paled even more, wrenching Barbara's heart.

"I know you lost your temper with John and Rick," she finally said gently. "I wanted you to tell me why."

"I don't know," Dinah said softly, once again focusing on the ground.

"Dinah, what did Rick say that upset you?" Barbara pressed, having learned from Helena that the odds for a response were directly proportional to the specificity of the question.

"He was talking about how he had to pick his little brother up and said that he didn't care if the murderer got him and took him away from his family."

Dinah's response sent warning bells off in Barbara's head. 'Maybe Helena was right and this case has special significance to her. I still think she's connecting it to her mother's murder, but I can't think of why... unless it's still just an excuse to vent her emotions.'

All she said out loud was, "And why did you hit John?"

"He jumped in."

"And Gabby?"

Dinah winced, still not looking up. "I thought it was another of the football players. She was trying to pull me away from the fight."

"Is she okay?"

"I knocked the wind out of her."

"That's not what I meant."

"I don't know," Dinah admitted sadly, sighing. "She won't talk to me."

"I wouldn't worry," Barbara said, seeing the pained and lost expression on her protégé's face. "Just give her a day or so and she'll listen to your apology."

Dinah nodded miserably.

Barbara watched her silently for a few moments as she made up her mind. Finally, she took a deep breath and put her hands flat on the desk in front of her. "Okay, here's the deal," she said. "What you did today is absolutely NOT acceptable behavior by any means, but there were extenuating circumstances to take into account."

Dinah glanced up at her curiously in spite of herself.

"You are hereby sentenced to a month-long probationary grounding."

"Uh, Barbara, what does that mean?" the teen asked timidly.

"It means you better not do something like that again," Barbara said sternly. "But until such time as you commit another offense, nothing happens. You will go to all of your assigned detentions, do your homework, and continue your training. Fail to do any of these even once, and you're grounded for that and then an extra month for this."

"Oh," Dinah said, nonplussed. "Okay."

"Now go to your detention," Barbara said, gathering the papers on her desk and putting them in a bag. "I'll be back to pick you up afterwards."

"Uh, actually," Dinah stammered, looking down again. "I was wondering if it would be okay if I walked home."

"It's a long way," the redhead said skeptically.

"I know," Dinah said, beginning to scrape one foot along the ground. "I just... I want to walk around for a while."

Barbara almost refused the request before she remembered that the cemetery was on the way back to the tower. "Okay, but stay on comms. And I can still be here if you change your mind."

"Thanks," Dinah said, still not looking at her mentor. She stood up and made her way out the door. "See you later."

"Have fun!" Barbara called after her, desperate to lighten the mood.

Dinah turned back and rolled her eyes at her.

* * *

A man was slowly driving around the park. He had brown hair and eyes, was of medium height and had an average build. He wouldn't call himself patient, but he had sense enough to make a good plan and stick to it.

Besides, it had already worked four times before.

For almost ten minutes, he looked in vain for the kind of parking place he would need. It would have been easier to park when there wasn't a kid's soccer game being held, but that would defeat the whole purpose, wouldn't it?

Finally, he found what he was looking for. Next to the field at the end of the park was a small hill the perfect size to hide his car. He carefully parked, and made sure to lock the doors when he got out. It wasn't the safest neighborhood after all.

There was a murderer on the loose.

He took a moment to get into character before going over the small hill. Really, it wasn't necessary, the parents were all too stupid to realize who he was, but that was no reason not to do it right. Art for art's sake and all of that. Besides, it was one of the most entertaining parts of the whole thing.

Putting his hands in his jacket pockets, he hurried up the small hill and down the other side. A quick look at the team banners on either side of the field told him the names of the teams. He caressed the switchblade in his right jacket pocket as he jogged to the closest cluster of adults and went right into their midst without any hesitation.

"Oh, man!" he said, pushing out the words as quickly as they would come. "I'm so sorry I'm late! What's the score?"

"You're not too bad," the father next to him said. He was sitting on a cooler, and didn't bother to look up from the game. "No one's scored yet. Todd made a great save earlier, but you really haven't missed much."

'And you're missing everything!' he thought to himself, trying to keep the sneer from his face. 'This could be the last time you see Todd ever again. And you're all too stupid to see it.'

All he said out loud was, "That's good."

One of the boys wearing a white uniform suddenly stole the ball and kicked it up the field. The man with the cooler jumped to his feet, and all of the parents around him starting cheering and waving their arms. 'So they're with the boys in white,' he thought to himself, making a mental note. A different boy in white received the pass and suddenly broke from the defenders around him.

Shouts of "Get back!" or "Defend the goal!" came from the other side of the field. The parents on his side of the field, however, were cheering encouragement and most of them were yelling "Shoot! Take the shot!"

The boy stopped ten feet away from the goal and kicked the ball as hard as he could. It went straight to the goalie and was stopped.

Cheering came from the other side of the field as the goalie kicked the ball away. And the man yelled with them, well aware that was the opposite of the response that the people around him expected. The parents around him all relaxed, and a couple shouted "Good try! You'll get it next time!"

No one noticed his inappropriate response. They were all morons.

The man with the cooler turned to him and said, "Hey, you want a soda?"

"Yeah," he replied distractedly. "That sounds great."

He hated when parents talked to him. The whole reason he came to the games was to put shouted names to faces that he had seen at schools beforehand, and other people talking to him made it harder. But it wouldn't do to have them see how angry it made him. He imagined taking out his knife and jamming it into the cooler man's eye... that put the smile back on his face.

He looked at the father just long enough to take the Pepsi, and then looked back at the game for fear that he would laugh out loud. It was just too rich! He was quite possibly stalking his son, and the idiot was giving him a drink for the trouble!

Now the boys in blue had the ball. Passing it back and forth between them, they moved down the field to the goal. In ever-increasing excitement, he realized that he recognized two of the forwards from the school he had been scoping out the day before. Now, if only someone would call out encouragement...

One of the boys in blue broke away from the other and went straight for the goal. The goalie tensed and put his hands out in the ready.

"Go Will!" an excited mother called from the other side of the field.

The murderer's right hand again stroked the handle of his knife and his left made a triumphant gesture towards the sky, spilling Pepsi all over his chest. He cursed under his breath as he tried to wipe the liquid from his jacket before it seeped in.

Cheering from the other side of the field told him that Will had scored.

A woman walked up to him and handed him a Kleenex from her purse. "It's so exciting when they score, isn't it?"

It seemed someone had finally noticed that he was cheering for the other team.

He put the soda down on the grass and took the Kleenex with his left hand to keep his right on his knife. He could kill her right then, in front of everyone, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. "Yeah. Great game, isn't it? Which one's yours?"

The ball was now back at the center of the field.

"Daniel, the forward that just passed the ball," she said proudly, pointing out her son. "Which one's yours?"

"Billy," he said, pointing toward the defense of the other team.

She smiled kindly. "I think you're on the wrong side. We're the Dark Knights."

The man looked at her, startled. "Not the Caped Crusaders?" he asked sheepishly.

"Those parents are camped out on the other side of the field," she said, shaking her head. "Don't worry, it's an easy mistake to make. Our banners do look similar. Yours is blue and gray with a yellow circle around the symbol, and ours is gray and black without the shield around the symbol."

"Oh, man," the man said, laughing in embarrassment.

"Happens to the best of us," she assured him.

"Thanks. I guess I better get over there before Billy notices," he said, beginning to walk away.

"No problem."

He walked away smugly, able to put shouted names to three faces he had seen the day before at their school. And, more than that, he had met their parents and they hadn't recognized him for what he was. They were such idiots!

And no one noticed when the confused father failed to reappear on the other side of the hill.


	5. Chapter 5

Thanks to SamIAm4 for her help. And thanks to Nope, WP, and jt58 for the kind reviews. They mean a lot.

* * *

Dinah and Helena were training together, but there didn't seem to be enough light. It didn't bother Helena at all, but Dinah could hardly see what she was doing. She saw Helena's fist coming at her and knew that there was some way to counter the attack, but she couldn't remember what. The fist connected solidly with the side of her face, and for the fourth time that session Dinah fell to the floor.

"Come on, kid! That was an easy one!" Helena said, standing above her with her arms crossed.

"Did you have to hit me so hard?" Dinah asked, wincing as she touched the side of her face.

"Hey, on the streets, the bad guys aren't going to take it easy on you, either. Now get up, and let's try this again."

Dinah stood shakily on her feet, now dizzy on top of not being able to see. She could make out a dim outline of Helena's form, but it seemed to wave in and out. Suddenly, the fist was right in front of her face again, and Dinah threw herself backwards to lessen the impact.

"Come _on_, kid!" Helena said exasperatedly, pulling the blonde roughly to her feet. "I've been using the same move the whole time and you're still acting like you don't see it coming."

"I don't," Dinah said truthfully. It cost her something to admit it to Helena, but she didn't want to get beat to a pulp, either. "Maybe we should stop for now. I don't feel so well all of a sudden."

Just then, Carolyn appeared, striding smoothly out of thin air. "That's because you're not with me where you belong. Being a superhero isn't the life I wanted for you. You wouldn't be as good at it as I was."

"How do you know when you won't let me try?" Dinah demanded, her voice shaking in spite of herself.

"I'm your mother and I know what's best for you," Carolyn said, roughly taking her by the arm. "And you're coming with me."

"Wait!" Dinah protested, struggling against her mother's grip. "Stop!"

Just then Barbara wheeled into the room, thankfully through the door and not out of thin air.

"Barbara, help me!" Dinah called hopefully. "I don't have to go with her, do I?"

"I told you what would happen if you stopped training," Barbara said. "And she is your mother. You need to go with her."

Carolyn sneered in triumph and began dragging her daughter away, back from where she had come. A large blackness appeared in the middle of the training room, and Dinah realized that was where the darkness had come from all along. It was why she couldn't see.

"Why?" Dinah asked desperately. "So she can ditch me again?"

"I can't believe you," Helena said, her arms crossed and shaking her head in disgust. "I would give anything to get to see my mom one last time, and you don't even want to go with her. You're as cold and heartless as my father."

"Don't make me go!" Dinah pleaded as her mother dragged her dangerously close to the darkness. "Please, help me! I want to stay with you!"

"You're just upset," Barbara told her. "You'll come around. Believe me, this is the best thing for all of us. You would have never fit in here."

Tears streaming down her face, Dinah stopped fighting. "But, how do you know what's best for me? I can do better! I promise. I'll train harder. I'll get better grades. I can help, too!"

"I just want to get to know you again," Carolyn reassured her, pulling harder. "I don't know why you won't give me a fair chance. A good daughter would have wanted this."

"And I don't think I want someone staying here who would be so awful to her own mother," Barbara added. "How do I know you won't do the same thing to me?"

And then they were both in the blackness, hurtling outwards into space. The breath was pulled from Dinah's body and all the light and warmth were gone...

Dinah woke up with a start and stared around herself in confusion. She was seated in a classroom near the back. Several other students were seated in front of her, looking just as bored and drowsy and staring lazily in front of them. It seemed no one had noticed that she had fallen asleep in her detention.

Dinah sighed in frustration and ran a hand through her hair. 'If only I could fall asleep JUST ONCE without having Canary show up. It doesn't even have to be a whole night. Just an hour or so. Just-'

"All right everyone," the principal called. "This afternoon's detention is over. I'll see most of you this time again tomorrow."

Dinah waited for everyone else to get up before she filed out like the rest of them. As she exited the class, she wished that she hadn't told Barbara not to pick her up. She just wanted to go back to the tower and sleep; maybe she could sleep in peace for a while since she'd already had the nightmare.

For a moment she considered using her comms to call her guardian, and actually reached up to turn the mic on, but she didn't want to bother Barbara again. 'I'm already enough of a burden as it is,' Dinah thought to herself, carefully switching off only the microphone. If she were to accidentally turn off the whole set, Barbara might decide that she was fed up with her and-

Well, she'd be sure not to do that.

Finally reaching the doors that opened outside, she was struck by just how beautiful a day it was. The sky was a deep blue dotted by white puffy clouds that made you want to lie down and pick out the shapes as they lazily floated by. Back in Opal, she had done just that on many occasions. All it took was imagination, and you didn't have to have someone to play with you for it to be fun.

It only made her feel worse.

Dinah hadn't been watching where she was walking, and was shocked to find herself at the cemetery. She stared dumbly at the gate for a few minutes, trying to decide whether or not to go in. But the whole trouble was that she didn't want to be with her mother, and this was no exception.

Still, she couldn't just walk away, either.

"Stupid gate!" Dinah finally said in frustration. "Every time there's a gate, it makes you choose something. Go in or stay out. Well, I don't feel like choosing!"

She stared at the offending pieces of metal for several more seconds.

"I'm not scared of you," she finally insisted. "I just don't feel like going in right now."

She made no move to walk away.

"I didn't want you to die," Dinah said softly, staring at the ground. "I just didn't want to go with you. I... didn't trust you. You can't blame me for that."

She began kicking at some of the rocks on the ground half-heartedly.

"You ruined everything when you came," she said. "I was going to help people. I would've been a good superhero. _They_ didn't mind that I saw things. They were nice. But now they think you were right and I can't be me anymore."

Suddenly unable to keep still, she began to pace.

"You suck!" she finally yelled. She wasn't quite sure whom she meant, but it didn't matter. The gate sucked, her mom sucked, Barbara and Helena sucked, and she sucked for thinking that way.

She kept pacing.

* * *

At the tower, Helena found Barbara sitting, predictably, at the Delphi.

"Any word from Detective Reese?" Barbara asked her, turning her chair around to face her.

"Everyone's pissed," Helena said. "The leak has put the pressure on the police department to catch the murderer and Reese says there'll finally be some undercover presence at the schools."

Barbara sighed in relief and turned back to her computers. "Finally."

"Hey, where's the kid?" Helena asked. "Doesn't she usually hang around and annoy you when you're working?"

"No, that's you," Barbara answered. "Dinah just stands behind me quietly and watches. But she's still at school."

Helena checked her watch. "Why?"

"She..." Barbara hesitated, wondering if telling Helena would embarrass Dinah more. "... is in detention. She got into a fight at school today."

Helena's jaw dropped and then she laughed out loud. "Seriously? How'd she do? Wait, please tell me it was over some guy!"

"It's not funny," Barbara said, turning back and giving her the patented maternal glare. "And, no, it wasn't over a boy. It was with two boys... and the whole football team."

Helena raised an eyebrow. When it seemed that Barbara had nothing else to add, she crossed her arms and waited pointedly.

Barbara tried to sigh exasperatedly and failed miserably. Finally, unable to keep the smile off her face, she added, "She did very well."

"Ha!" Helena yelled. "I knew it. You're proud of her."

"Yes, it's good to know she could take two teenage boys by surprise after we've been training her for months," Barbara said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

"You're proud of her," Helena goaded.

"She shouldn't have lost her temper," Barbara insisted, looking away.

"Oh, you're SO proud of her!"

At that moment the elevator doors opened, and Alfred came into the room.

"Hey, Alfred!" Helena called. "You're never gonna believe this! Dinah got into a fight at school today!"

"Miss Dinah?" Alfred asked, his eyebrows raised in surprise.

Helena nodded as the grandfatherly butler walked closer. "And it wasn't even over a guy." She paused as a thought struck her. "What _was_ it over, Barbara?"

"I'm not sure even Dinah knows completely," Barbara said, leaning back against her chair. "But something she said is worrying me. When I asked her what had upset her, she told me that the boy had said the murderer could have his little brother."

Helena's eyes widened and her jaw dropped open for the second time that conversation. "Wait, I was right? The case is what's been getting to her?"

"It looks that way," Barbara said. "I've been looking into Dinah's background, trying to find anything that would suggest this case would resonate with her."

"You think she might have known children who were murdered?" Alfred asked.

Barbara sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I thought that she might, but I haven't found any murders in or around Opal in that time period. Then I thought that she might have dreamt about some of the murders the same way she dreamt about the night that... the Joker escaped. It's a distinct possibility, but it's impossible to find out for certain without asking her."

"Why?" Helena asked.

Barbara began rubbing her temples. "Because there doubtless were at least some children murdered somewhere in the world in the last sixteen years, but there's no telling if the radius of her powers was great enough to allow her to see them. We know that she was able to see New Gotham from Opal seven years ago and if her powers extend that far in the other direction as well..."

"A lot of possible murders," Helena finished.

"Perhaps it's not just her mother's death or just the case," Alfred suggested. "Perhaps the two are, in her mind, related in some way. While both are very tragic events, putting them together may have compounded her grief."

"Maybe the link is the breaking of family," Barbara said excitedly, her detective's mind already at work. "Children and parents. Listen, Al Hawke killed her mother and now someone is killing children. Maybe she fought with Rick because he didn't mind his family being broken."

"So, maybe letting her on sweeps will help," Helena suggested. "When Mom died, I felt so mad at myself that I hadn't been able to stop it. Maybe we're making it worse by still not letting her help keep families together."

"It's possible," Barbara admitted, "but it's still dangerous for her to be out there. If our theory is true, she's transferring her rage from Al Hawke to the murderer. She won't be thinking clearly."

Helena nodded, and, sighing, dropped a nearby chair deep in thought.

"Well, I'm sure the two of you will help Miss Dinah through this hard time," Alfred said, walking away and entering the kitchen.

Barbara nodded and turned her chair back to the computers. She pressed a button on the Delphi and a loud "Beep! ... Beep! ... Beep!" was emitted.

"What's that?" Helena asked in surprise.

"The new alarm that will sound when Detective Reese tries to contact us again."

"Only if he's in a big truck that's backing up," Helena said, crinkling her nose.

A high-pitched "pew, pew, pew" came from the computers.

"No lasers!" Helena said quickly. "We're not in the eighties, Barbara."

Barbara sighed and pushed another button.

"Is that a foghorn?" Helena asked in disbelief.

"Helena, you can't dislike all of them!" Barbara said in frustration. "Just pick one!"

"So, it's either 'Wide Load', 'Eighties Re-run', or a foghorn?"

"Foghorn it is," Barbara said.

* * *

Dinah was still pacing when something hit her on the top of her head.

"Ow!" she said, backing away and rubbing her head.

A small squirrel was on its hind legs, chattering angrily at her.

"Oh, man, I can't believe I just got one upped by a squirrel!"

Shaking her head, Dinah took the hint and moved away from the squirrel's home and made her way to the tower. Still, she didn't fault the small animal. He was only defending his home... and it had certainly worked, hadn't it?

Cocking her head as she walked, she wondered if she should have pelted Canary with an acorn that first time she had seen her. She had been on the balcony, after all, and the angle would have been perfect.

Dinah smiled as she walked.


	6. Chapter 6

I still don't own any of the characters. Thanks to Pendray, Roonie, and rain1657 for reviewing. I really appreciate it. And thanks to SamIAm for her invaluable help.

* * *

As Dinah walked home, she found herself thinking about throwing acorns at Black Canary, but that made her think of an old Lion King video game where a gorilla was throwing bananas at Simba. That led her to think of throwing bananas at her mother because she was much more likely to have access to bananas in the tower than acorns, and that made her think of throwing bat-a-rangs at her mother because those were even more likely to be on the balcony. But then she pictured Barbara's and Helena's reactions to her violent thoughts and shuddered.

Dinah's stomach tightened and clenched and her throat suddenly seemed very dry as she considered how angry they would be at her. Maybe they would be so angry with her that-

No, they would never find out. Dinah was the telepath of the group after all, she didn't need to worry about them seeing through her. Still, she stopped taking delight in the images... for a few moments. Really, she tried, but then she pictured the small squirrel pelting acorns at Canary instead of herself. That wasn't her fault, was it? She had been thinking about her mother at the time of the squirrel incident, so she wasn't to blame if recollection of one brought recollection of the other.

The traffic was beginning to worsen in the beginnings of the evening rush. A light turned green, and a large U-haul truck accelerated slowly, giving Dinah a clear view of the other side of the street. What passed for a park in New Gotham suddenly became visible. There were a few picnic tables on a small field, and a rather dilapidated playground. A small boy was playing alone on the monkey bars. She thought nothing of it for a few seconds, and then did a double take. He had blond hair and looked five or six. He fit the profile of the murders.

She stopped for a moment and thought; she really did want to get back and try to get some sleep.

But he fit the profile.

Dinah shook her head and started walking again as she remembered that all of the kids had been taken from schools.

But the boy was all by himself; something might happen even if that particular murderer wasn't involved.

She stopped again. She had loads of homework that she should get started on, but she could do most of it at the park. She probably wouldn't sleep, anyway.

Having decided, she sat herself down at one of the picnic tables and took out her Algebra. Every now and then (well, maybe a little more than that, it was _Algrebra_ after all) she would look up to check on the little boy.

He seemed to not mind her presence at all, and played quite contentedly on the monkey bars. After a few minutes, he climbed up the slide and stood for a moment at the top. Then he put both arms straight out from his sides and ran down the slide full speed, making ominous crashing sounds. At the bottom he jumped off into the sand and, keeping his arms out, started darting between the various pieces of equipment.

"I am the Batman!" Dinah heard him say to an invisible audience in what was surely the deepest voice he could manage. "Half man, half bat! I fly through the night to stop bad guys and suck their blood!" Here the boy paused and put his arms down for a moment as he considered. "But I have to get back to my cave before the sun comes out so I don't melt. And then, when the full moon comes out, I turn into a giant bat! And then I have to sleep upside down!"

It was only with a supreme effort that Dinah kept herself from laughing out loud. Unable to keep the grin off her face, she hid the bottom half of her face behind her math book and peeked over the top.

The boy, evidently playing the part of Batman during a full moon, climbed to the top of the monkey bars and hung himself upside down from his knees. He pantomimed pulling his wings around himself dramatically and going to sleep. But, as his face began to turn red, this soon lost its novelty, and he climbed back down safely.

Dinah was tiring of Algebra and was just moving to her English homework, when she noticed someone else was approaching. The newcomer hardly looked suspicious, though. It was a freshman she had seen around school.

"Rusty!" the blond, curly haired girl called out.

"Hi," the boy chirped, dropping down from the monkey bars.

"Rusty, I've been looking everywhere for you!" she said, her voice full of relief.

"Why?" Rusty wondered, cocking his head. "I've been right here."

"You need to tell me where you're going _before_ you go," the girl insisted. "I would have come with you."

"But I said, 'Christina!' and you said you were busy," Rusty said indignantly.

"There's a very bad person stealing kids from their parents right now," Christina said. "You shouldn't have come out here by yourself-"

"But I wasn't by myself," Rusty interrupted, pointing behind her at Dinah.

Christina turned around and noticed Dinah for the first time. A look of recognition crossed her face and she smiled. "You've been watching my little brother?"

Dinah shrugged, embarrassed. "I didn't feel like going home."

"Parents?" Christina asked knowingly.

"You saw how Barbara was," Dinah said. When Christina looked confused, she added, "Ms. Gordon, I mean. She's my guardian."

Christina's eyes grew wide. "I'm so sorry," she said.

It was so heartfelt that it made Dinah laugh. "She's lots worse in school. She's actually pretty cool when there aren't students around. It's just, I kind of got into a fight with two guys on the football team today, and she's pretty mad..."

"That was _you_?" Christina asked incredulously. "You got into a fight with Rick and John and walked away from it?"

Dinah shrugged in discomfort and looked away, her problems suddenly crashing back down on her. She hadn't realized that it was so well known already.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up," Christina said quickly. "I'm sure no one blames you for anything. If _you_ finally had to hit them, they must have been doing something really bad."

"They really weren't," Dinah admitted. "It was my fault. There's just a lot going on."

Christina turned to her little brother. "Hey, Rusty, you wanna keep playing for a while?"

"Yeah!" Rusty cried, running back over to the monkey bars.

"You wanna talk about it?" Christina asked, taking a seat.

Dinah had heard that so many times in the last few days that she snapped. "No, I DON'T want to talk about it! I never want to talk about it! Why does everyone think they have a right to know what I'm feeling? Does it make you feel superior to know that I'm not dealing with this?!"

Christina seemed unaffected by the outburst. "Ms. Gordon's been asking you that a lot, huh?"

"Everyone has!" Dinah said angrily, putting her English homework away in sharp, jagged motions.

Christina sat down on the bench across from her and looked away, distantly watching her little brother play. "It's so annoying when grown-ups ask you how you feel. It's like they already have it all figured out how you _should_ feel, and no matter what you actually say, they're always seeing it the way they want to see it."

Dinah had been standing to leave, but this got her attention.

"Like, it's not bad enough that they get to decide what's best for you, but they have to decide how you feel about it, too."

Dinah sat back down. "That's exactly it."

"And then, you want to tell them that they're wrong, and exactly how you really are feeling, but that only plays into it more," Christina said, picking up steam. "And they get this smug look on their face, like that's how they expected you to act all along."

"It's like trying to tell someone that you're not in denial," Dinah said excitedly. "Every time you tell them that you're not, they say, 'Well, that's what someone would say if they were in denial.' It's totally annoying."

"Yeah! Like this one time, about a year ago, my parents decided that we should all go through family counseling because of the divorce, and this stupid counselor keeps asking me if I'm afraid for my parents. The first couple of times I said that I wasn't, and then I started to try to change the subject to stuff that _was_ bothering me, and she thought it was a sign that I was really worried about my parents. It was so dumb!"

"Exactly!" Dinah said. "See, I've been living with Barbara for a while now, but then my mom shows up and wants me to go with her."

"Did you want to go?" Christina asked.

For a moment, Dinah just sat there staring. It was the question no one else had cared to ask her, and finally hearing it out loud stunned her for a few moments. All of the emotions she had been feeling for the last couple of weeks suddenly seemed to catch in her throat all at once, and for several seconds the words just refused to come.

"No!" she finally cried. "I mean, I _really_ didn't want to go. For the first time in my life, I feel happy where I am, and I didn't want to leave."

Christina paused for a beat, and then asked quietly "Are they gonna make you go?"

"They were," Dinah admitted. "But there was this accident... And she died."

"Well, that's good," Christina said. Then she her eyes got wide in horror and she said quickly, "I mean, that you don't have to go. Not that she died. I mean, I'm really sorry to hear that, but I'm glad that you get to stay with Ms. Gordon. I'm so sorry, that's not-"

"That's okay," Dinah said quickly. "I know what you meant."

"Thanks," Christina said, sighing in relief. "So... are you glad that you don't have to go, now?"

Dinah looked up at her sharply. "I'm not glad she died."

"Oh, no! I know. That's not what I meant," Christina said quickly. "I mean, you didn't want to go before... but you didn't know something bad would happen to her. You couldn't have known." She paused for a few moments and then added, "It's okay that you didn't want to go with her."

Dinah sighed. "I don't know. I... feel bad that she died. I keep thinking that if I had just gone with her from the start, she would still be alive."

Christina thought for a moment. "It's not your fault. You couldn't have known. And, the way I figure it, it was supposed to be her job to protect you, you know? Not the other way around."

Dinah nodded, looking away. A large part of her wanted desperately to agree, while her conscience screamed at her, 'But it _is_ a hero's job to protect people.' Maybe Barbara was right and she wasn't ready for sweeps. Maybe Black Canary had been right and she never would be.

"Besides," Christina added, "you were just defending your home... your foundation. It's your right. No one can blame you for it. I mean... you gotta figure that's why there are so many wars."

Dinah tried to find what wars had in common with her situation and failed. "What do wars have to do with it?" she finally asked.

"I mean, most wars are over land, right? But land's just a piece of dirt until you put your roots into it. Then it's your home. And people are willing to die to defend their homes."

Christina hesitated and then added, "It's okay to be mad at 'em. You know? Even if your mom isn't alive, you can't help that you're mad. And, Ms. Gordon, too. Even though she's been nice to you, it's okay to be mad at her. I mean, if they make you feel guilty for being mad, they don't stop you from being mad. They just make you feel mad, guilty, and kinda resentful that they made you feel guilty."

"They're not trying to make me feel guilty," Dinah assured her quickly, feeling a little protective of her family.

"Well, that's good," Christina said, "because you shouldn't."

Dinah shrugged noncommittally.

"How did Ms. Gordon react?"

"She was sad. She knew my mom, too."

"No, I mean, are you going to keep staying with her?"

"Oh, yeah," Dinah said so quickly that the two words almost came out at once.

Christina looked at her intently. "Have you guys talked about it?"

"No," Dinah admitted, looking down.

"Oh, man!" Christina said, slapping her forehead. "That's it, isn't it? Ms. Gordon keeps thinking you need to talk about your mom, but you really just need her to tell you that she still wants you to live with her."

Dinah stared at her.

"It's not bad," Christina said quickly. "I mean, when my family was going to that counselor or whatever, that's what I wanted to talk about. But that stupid lady kept thinking that when I talked about how scared I was because of the custody issues, she kept thinking that I was really worried about my parents. I think she thought that I felt like I should take care of them. But I really just needed to know that things hadn't changed, you know? That they still wanted me and Rusty."

Dinah nodded mutely.

"Dinah, they never figure it out," Christina said sadly. "You need to tell Ms. Gordon what's wrong so that she can tell you that she still likes you and stuff."

"But, what if they-" Dinah abruptly stopped herself and shook her head. "No, it's stupid. They'll just think that I can't handle it."

"It's not stupid!" Christina said firmly. "I mean, it's your foundation. Nothing's scarier than having that threatened. It... it feels like you're just sliding away down some hill or something and no one's noticing. You've got to make them notice!"

"It's not the same thing!" Dinah cried, stiffening. "They're your parents. You don't know what it's like to depend on people when you don't know if they're going to want you next month or even next week!"

Christina shook her head. "No, I don't know," she agreed quietly. "But, Dinah, if she's been trying to get you to open up, she must be worried about you. She must love you."

"They should say it, though," Dinah said softly, deflating.

"Dinah, is Ms. Gordon mean?" Christina asked in a concerned, carefully measured voice.

Dinah shook her head without looking at Christina.

"Will she use your feelings against you or say that you're being ungrateful because you need to know that she wants you?"

Dinah considered briefly and shook her head again.

"Will she, like, make fun of you or anything?"

Dinah laughed a little at that, but still didn't look up. "No, Barbara's too nice to do something like that. She'll tease you about stuff but I don't think she could really just make fun of someone."

"Then why can't you tell her?" Christina asked gently.

"Because she might not-" she stopped herself once again.

"You're afraid she'll say that she doesn't want you to live with her anymore," Christina supplied gently. "That maybe having your mom show up changed things."

Dinah looked up at her sharply, and suddenly wanted nothing more than to be away from that conversation.

"Seems to me, though," Christina said softly, "maybe living with the fear that she'll say she doesn't want you might be worse than asking."

That struck Dinah as an incredibly naïve thing to say. Sure, being afraid that Barbara and Helena didn't want her around was scary, but if she said anything they might send her away. Maybe even back to the Redmonds. If she could just keep her head down long enough, maybe she could change their minds and show them that she could earn her keep and be a good crime fighter like them.

Besides, her mother hadn't wanted her and the Redmonds surely hadn't. Why should she think that Barbara and Helena would be any different? Sure, they didn't mind her powers like the Redmonds had, but her mother didn't even know that she had powers when she gave her up.

But what should she say to Christina? 'You don't know me well enough to know that people don't like having me around?' Maybe Christina was just too young to know that some people weren't as good as her parents were... stupid freshmen.

"Listen, I've got to go," she said hastily, standing up. "I told Barbara that I'd come straight home, and I don't want to do something else to-" she caught herself abruptly. "You really should watch your little brother, though. I heard on the news that there's this guy killing kids his age."

"Oh, yeah," Christina said, also standing up. "He got something at school that talked about it. We've already got it all worked out... you know, except for this escaping to the park thing. Hey, Rusty! Come over here!"

The little boy came down the slide one more time and made his way over to the two teenagers.

"Rusty, do you ever go with strangers?"

"Only if they have the password," Rusty said confidently.

"Even if they say that they need help or that mom or dad is hurt?"

Rusty was quiet for a few moments and scrunched up his face in confusion. "You'd come get me."

Christina sighed. "Okay, what if they said that I was hurt?"

"Don't go with anybody without the password no matter what!" Rusty said, confident once again.

Christina beamed with pride.

"And don't come to the park by yourself," Dinah added.

"That's right," Christina agreed. "Come on, we've better get home. Hold hands crossing the street."

Rusty gave an exaggerated sigh that seemed to encompass his whole body. "I'm FIVE! I don't need to hold hands crossing the street!"

"Mom and Dad say you do," Christina insisted, holding out her hand. "And so do I."

Rusty heaved another enormous sigh, but did as he was told.

Dinah watched them go and then made her way back to the clocktower. It was only later, when she was almost back home, that something Christina had said about losing a foundation made her stop in her tracks.

"It feels like you're just sliding away ... and no one's noticing."

In her own nightmares, Dinah found herself hurling off into space without anything keeping her on the ground... like she was just spinning off the face of the Earth.

Uncomfortably, Dinah suddenly realized that she couldn't discount everything Christina had said, after all.


	7. Chapter 7

Thanks to SamIAm for all the editing and stuff. I still don't own any of the characters.

* * *

Dinah rode the elevator of the clocktower in inner turmoil, her thoughts whirling around her head at a rapid pace. Was Christina right? Would talking about it help? Or would it just prove her weakness and her inability to carry her own weight? Her fists tightened in frustration and anger at her confusion. Completely of its own volition, an image of the small squirrel pelting Christina with acorns popped into her mind.

As the elevator door opened, the lull in her thoughts ceased and she once again found herself contemplating her situation. What if not talking to Barbara and Helena made things worse? Maybe saying something would let them put a name to her discomfort and show that she wasn't just having random mood swings.

A strange noise coming from the Delphi startled Dinah from her thoughts. Her own problems were quickly forgotten as she remembered the horrible person stealing children from loving parents, and she sprinted as quickly as she could manage to the computers.

"Barbara?" she called as she ran.

"In here!"

As Dinah entered the room, she was relieved to see Barbara and Helena already seated at the computers, her guardian already typing steadily. The sound immediately calmed her raging emotions; everything turned out okay when Barbara got going. Still, she found herself stopping in confusion. "Is there a boat coming out of the Delphi?" she wondered.

Helena guffawed loudly. "I told you it sounds like a foghorn!" she said to Barbara.

Barbara rolled her eyes and typed something on the keyboard to make the alarm stop sounding. "It's the new sound the Delphi will blare when Detective Reese triggers the bat-ring," she explained to Dinah.

"What's he want now?" Helena complained, hardly looking annoyed. "I just talked to him earlier. He miss me already?"

The blonde raised an eyebrow and then shrugged. "He must have something new to tell us about the murders."

"It's broad daylight!" Helena complained, this time in genuine. "I can't go roof hopping when everyone can see me."

"Well, let's see where's he's signaling from before we decide anything," Barbara said. "It wouldn't set a good precedent if you don't show up the second time he uses the ring. You're still building trust with him."

Barbara typed in a few commands on her keyboard and a map of the city appeared with a blinking blue dot in the center. She deflated a little and sighed heavily, turning her chair around to face her charges. "He's in his office."

"Great," Helena said sarcastically. "Not only in broad daylight, but in the middle of a police station!"

"Why don't you just call him?" Dinah asked.

Barbara and Helena both looked at her for a few moments, stunned.

Dinah began to blush in embarrassment but carefully kept her tone light and sarcastic. "What?" she asked, shrugging. "Vigilantes don't use the phone?"

"Well, for one, he'd trace the call," Helena pointed out.

Barbara's back shot straight up, and she was obviously insulted. "Now, wait just one minute-"

"And, two," Helena said, ignoring the redhead. "We don't have the phone number."

"What do you mean, we don't have the phone number?" Barbara demanded indignantly. "I have everyone's phone number. His extension is listed on the police department's website, for heaven's sake!"

"And, most importantly," Helena continued, "it would ruin the mystique."

"But... wouldn't it be even more mysterious?" Dinah asked. "You know, show that you can get to him even when he thinks he's safe in the middle of the police station?"

Helena raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, if I was STALKING him!"

"Your 'mystique' is going to have to take a back seat this time," Barbara said firmly. "You can't just ignore what could be a call for help, and, like you said earlier, I don't want you walking into the police station in broad daylight without a reason to be there. The last thing we need is my father wondering why Detective Reese knows you as the Huntress."

"Oh, come on, Barbara," Helena whined, "this isn't the way we do things. We surprise police people on street corners or on a roof top. We don't just call them up and ask how they're doing. What's next? A special red phone that he can call whenever he wants?"

"I said that we should call him, not turn into the Powerpuff Girls," Dinah said, crinkling her nose.

"I'm just _saying_," Helena insisted, shrugging.

"Helena, I think there's little chance that Detective Reese is going to start suddenly mistaking you for Bubbles," Barbara said exasperatedly.

Helena's jaw dropped open.

"_That's_ who you remind me of!" Dinah said gleefully.

Helena's mouth worked several times, but nothing came out.

"I don't know why I didn't see it before!" Dinah continued. "The joy and the laughter... it's like they wrote the character from you!"

"Okay! First off, I'm _not_ a Powerpuff Girl!" Helena said, glaring daggers at both of them. "... and if I was, I'd be Buttercup. And second, how do you know the Powerpuff Girls?" she demanded of her mentor.

"I'm the Oracle," Barbara said simply. "Now, make the call."

Helena heaved an enormous sigh that reminded Dinah of Rusty. "Fine. You guys win. I'll call Reese _on the phone_."

"Thank you," Barbara said, beginning to type something on the computer.

"Why couldn't it be in Morse code or something," Helena muttered softly, scooting her chair closer to the phone. "We could have given him a receiver of his own... Or a system of those little tubes that people used to contact the Shadow... Two tin cans and a string would be more dignified than this."

Barbara ignored her but Dinah couldn't help laughing.

"Okay, the filters are up," Barbara said, turning on the speaker phone. "I've already dialed the number and programmed the network to lead any traces to a dummy line in Nebraska."

"Nebraska?" Dinah asked.

Barbara shrugged. "Are you ready, Helena?"

Still scowling, the brunette nodded.

Barbara turned on the speaker phone, and they all heard the phone ringing.

"Reese."

"You needed to speak with me, Detective?"

There was a moment's pause and then a surprised, "Huntress?"

Helena sighed. "No, it's Buttercup. Is there a super villain kidnapping the mayor?"

"Uh, no, I just found something that I thought you would like to know," Reese said, beginning to recover from his initial surprise. "You know that case we were talking about earlier with the abducted kids? Turns out, they all played soccer."

Helena looked at Barbara, who looked back at her intrigued.

"Same team?" Helena asked.

"No," Reese said, "that's why we didn't put it together at first. None of the parents knew one another, and no one thought of mentioning that their son played soccer when we first talked to them."

Barbara frantically grabbed a pen and a piece of paper and wrote something to show Helena.

"Did they play in the same league?" she asked.

"No," Reese said. "Some of the kids played in a league set up by a community center, and some played in a pick-up league that a few of the parents organized."

Barbara deflated a little.

Helena waited a few seconds to see if Barbara had anything else to ask or if Reese had anything else to add. When the silence lengthened, she said, "Thanks, Reese. I'll look into it."

She hung up, leaving Reese listening to a dial tone. 'Even on the phone she gets the last word,' he thought in frustration.

As he tried to trace the call, he wondered who Buttercup was.

Back in the clocktower, Barbara was furiously typing on the keyboard.

Dinah looked to Helena who shrugged ignorance.

"Barbara?" Dinah asked cautiously. "What does it mean?"

"I'm not sure, yet," Barbara said to the screen in front of her, the pace of her typing not even slowing. "If the boys were all in the same league, it would point to one of the organizers... but since they're not, it means someone either has access to both leagues' schedules, or is randomly watching soccer games. It's too much of a coincidence to mean nothing."

"So what do we do?" Helena asked.

"Go home and change into more comfortable clothes," Barbara answered, still not turning.

Helena looked down at her leather pants and uber stylish, revealing, black sweater. "What do you mean? These are my comfortable clothes."

Barbara sighed, finally turning her chair to face her two protégés. "You need to fit in with the parents. That means office attire or comfortable jeans and shirt. You're going to watch for anyone who doesn't seem to know the other parents or doesn't go home with a child at the end of the game. Go home. I'll call you with details as soon as I've hacked into the community center's database."

Helena stared down at her clothes mournfully. "The things I do to be a superhero," she said, slowly making her way to the elevator.

Dinah stood awkwardly in place for several seconds before she finally worked up the courage to ask timidly, "What about me?"

Barbara looked at her gently for several seconds before asking, "How much homework do you have?"

"I already did most of it," Dinah said eagerly. "Just another hour at the most."

"Okay," Barbara said smiling. "Get something to eat and go work on it until I finish this. If there's more than one game tonight, you can go, too."

Dinah, unable to keep the broad smile off of her face, hugged her mentor impulsively and rushed off to comply with her request.

"Oh, and Dinah?"

The teen stopped and turned around.

"Not a word to Helena that we watched Cartoon Network together when you were sick."

Dinah's smile broadened.

* * *

:: Oracle, I've got to stop him!:: Helena insisted over the comms.

:: Huntress, wait! Are you _absolutely_ certain?:: an exasperated Barbara asked.

Dinah tried not to laugh as she surveyed the scene around her. She and Helena were both at separate, 'seven and under', soccer games. Dinah was seated on the grass twenty feet away from anyone else, pretending to read a book. Barbara had told her to pretend she was a bored older sibling, so every time someone cheered or laughed especially loudly, she rolled her eyes in frustration and sighed as loudly as she could manage.

:: Yes, I'm sure! Would I be ready to chase this guy down if I wasn't 'absolutely' sure?::

:: Let's go over the list, shall we?:: Barbara asked rhetorically. :: So far, you have been 'absolutely sure' about two fathers, one mother, an uncle, a coach, and the ice cream man.::

:: You said that driving an ice cream truck could be perfect cover!:: Helena indignantly reminded her.

:: And you interpreted that to mean that you should chase the truck two blocks, jump onto the back of it, and pull the poor man out through the window?:: Barbara asked.

Dinah turned off the microphone as she laughed.

:: You're exaggerating... and I was hungry and he wouldn't stop.::

Dinah turned the mic back on and cleared her throat. "I'm not seeing anything here, either, Oracle. Are these all of the games going on tonight?"

Dinah clearly heard her mentor sigh over comms. :: I don't know. I was able to hack into the online database of the community center to find the dates and times of the soccer games, but it looks like the organizers of the other league have yet to move into the information age.::

:: This is boring, Oracle,:: Helena said. :: Look, if the kidnapper was here, he's probably seen me by now and left.::

:: You're probably right,:: Barbara admitted. :: Why don't you both come back in and we'll try again tomorrow.::

:: And you'll look into that ice cream man?:: Helena asked.

:: Absolutely.::

Dinah had the sneaking suspicion that it was only to make Helena feel better.

* * *

Once again, Dinah made her way through the crowded cafeteria, keeping her head up and eyes wide open so she wouldn't run into anyone else and start another fight. Unfortunately, the vigilance made her see how differently everyone was suddenly treating her. Some of the freshmen stared at her wide-eyed as she passed. The football players either gave her a wide berth or walked right up to her and whispered rude comments as they went by. Nearly everyone talked about her when her back was turned and several people actually pointed her out to their friends.

Blushing, Dinah wilted under the scrutiny and, as she had on her first day at New Gotham High, she ditched her tray on an empty table and walked right out. At the doorway, Christina tried to make eye contact with her and started to follow her, but retreated when Dinah looked away.

She was too afraid to upset Barbara to go to No Man's Land, so she planned on waiting out the lunch break in front of the school by herself. But as she made her way through the front doors, she saw Gabby sitting right where she had been heading. She stopped in her tracks right in the middle of the doorway, and silently watched her friend sitting underneath a tree as she decided what to do.

In relief, she remembered that Barbara had told her that Gabby would accept her apology in a couple of days. 'Barbara's always right,' she thought to herself.

But then she remembered that her guardian had been wrong about the way she herself was feeling.

As she paused once again, Gabby suddenly turned her head and looked right at her.

Quickly realizing that walking away would only cause more problems, Dinah took a deep breath and willed herself forward.

Gabby stared at her in surprise for several moments, apparently having thought that she would avoid her friend in front of the school. Dinah's stomach flip flopped as Gabby started to get up, and then sank back against the tree trunk in resignation.

"Gabby, I am _so_ sorry," Dinah started.

"What's up with you?" Gabby demanded, cutting her off. "For the last few weeks you hardly talk at all, and then when you finally do, it's to pick a fight!"

"I know," Dinah said, a lump beginning to grow in her throat. "I'm sorry. There's been a lot going on-"

"Well, duh!" Gabby said, a look of disgust on her face. She stood up and her voice suddenly lost its accusatory tone. "Look, I know you didn't mean to hit me. That's not why I'm mad at you."

Dinah just stared at her in open confusion.

"I guess I'm just hurt that you didn't think you could talk to me about it," Gabby said softly. "And... that you didn't think I would notice that something happened."

Dinah's shoulders, squared to receive the worst that she knew she deserved, suddenly sank as she felt herself deflate at the concern in her friend's voice.

"I mean, come on, even Patrick knew something was up."

Dinah laughed a little. Patrick was a friend of theirs who had always reminded her a little of what Gibson must have been like in High School. Gabby was right, it was stupid not to tell her. But... it was so hard. She'd been burned so many times by people who had seemed nice.

By people who were supposed to be.

She wanted to talk. She honestly did. But the words just wouldn't come. It was as if they had lodged somewhere in her chest, and her mind just couldn't find them. The effort to pull them out brought so much pain that tears sprang to her eyes unbidden.

Tears for what? Dinah wasn't entirely sure. Maybe for pain so raw that it burned from her throat to her chest. Maybe for fear... terror that showing herself to someone would only hurt her worse. Maybe for the need for security, the hole deep in her very being that had just begun to fill before her mother had shown up. Maybe for the memory of the piece of herself that had been ripped from her when her mother had left her with the Redmonds. Maybe for the shadow of what might have been.

But the reason didn't seem to matter as much as the tears. Her heart wanted them gone.

"Come on, Dinah," Gabby said softly. "What happened?"

Dinah opened her mouth and her heart, long buried but never forgotten, broke.

Straight from her heart came the tale of her mother's abandonment and all of the fear and confusion and loneliness. Straight from her heart came her sufferings at the hands of the Redmonds, and the desperation that drove her to come to the city to find something better... and the hope that had followed finding Barbara, Helena, and Alfred.

Her heart told Gabby about her happiness and the acceptance that had so long been denied her, only to be shattered by her mother's arrival. Her heart wailed at the terrible things she had said and the missed opportunity. Her heart told of terrible guilt, and then of fear so great that it was paralyzing.

Her home had been taken by her mother's arrival, and had not been returned by her departure.

Her mind worked independently, carefully skirting the parts of the story that exposed the fact that she was meta and Barbara and Helena were superheroes. She left out completely the part of the story where Canary had told her she was proud of her before she died. It wouldn't have made sense when compared with the official story of the accident, and it didn't matter, anyway. She knew that it would someday... but at that moment, it just didn't.

Still, the emotions were real and the story was the truth.

Gabby quietly took in every word and sat stunned for several seconds after the story was completed. Before she could think of something to say, the bell rang.  
  
"We'd better get to class," Dinah said, wiping her tears away.  
  
"I think this is more important-" Gabby started to say, laying a reassuring hand on her friend's shoulder.  
  
"No, are you crazy?" Dinah said, much more harshly than she meant. Her emotions were still running on overhaul, but she could deal with that later. "What if Barbara gets mad at me again?"  
  
"I don't think-" Gabby started, but Dinah was already standing up and making her way to her locker.  
  
"We'll talk about it later, okay?" Dinah asked, moving away quickly.  
  
"Yeah," Gabby said, standing still underneath the tree. "I'll see you after school before your detention."  
  
Dinah waved acknowledgement, and went through the doors.  
  
Gabby shook her head. Oh, they would definitely talk about it later. Dinah could count on it.


	8. Chapter 8

Warning: The cuss words I've been warning about appear in this chapter. There's only one or two, but if they bother you, please don't read on. Thanks to SamIAm for all the help, and rain1657 for the kind reviews.

-----

A man with brown hair and an average face slowly circled the elementary school. The traffic was terrible, and there were hardly any places to park. He didn't mind; it helped his cover. He was able to (forced to, even) drive slowly enough to watch the children as they played or were picked up by their parents. He took one hand off the steering wheel and handled his knife as he drove past.

A large blue car suddenly pulled away from the curb, cutting him off. The man's hand tightened around the knife hidden between the seats of his car, but he fought down the urge to scream obscenities. A mother in a van politely waited for him to take the parking spot vacated by the blue car.

It annoyed him, but he forced himself to smile. He had to take his hand off his knife to wave her forward. The woman smiled at him and gave a little wave as she pulled into the parking space. A little girl saw the car and went into the passenger side door. The man looked through the school gates as he waited for the mother in the van to pull back out again.

He recognized many of the children from his previous visits, was even able to put names to many of them, but they didn't pay him any attention. He saw parents and teachers talking to one another, occasionally casting wary glances around, as if they were looking for him.

They probably were.

It only testified to his genius and their stupidity that they hadn't recognized him for what and who he was. Having seen him driving around the school so often, they all assumed that he had a child attending. No one noticed that he drove around and around without stopping. After all, it was notoriously difficult to find a parking space just as school was letting out. How were they to tell the difference between him and a hundred other adults picking up students?

For a good half hour, he circled the school as the traffic thinned. The children who were left went back into classrooms for after school programs or sat next to the sign posted at the front of the school as they waited for late rides. These were the children he was most interested in, but none of them looked familiar.

Still, he found himself being drawn to one little boy... He circled the block once more as he considered his options. He didn't know his name so he wouldn't be able to pull his usual trick, but others had worked in the past as well. He could invite the boy to ice cream or ask for help finding a lost puppy.

As he drove past the front of the school once more, he caught another look at the boy. He didn't look too smart. It would probably work.

He started to look for a place to park, and it was only then that he noticed a dark haired man whom he had previously assumed to be a teacher confronted by several other adults. The hand around his knife tightened spasmodically, as he watched the scene enfold with rapt interest.

He looked forward to see where he was going, and saw a lamppost looming straight in front of him. He jammed on his brakes and yanked the steering wheel to the left with one hand, refusing to take the other one away from his knife. The bumper of his car scraped along the pole, but he didn't think there was any damage. He didn't care, anyway. Slowing his car, he turned back around to see what was happening in front of the school.

The dark haired man reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a badge. He was an undercover cop! In horror, the man realized that if the cop had the decency to tell the school officials what was happening, then he would've been arrested by then. Still, as he drove away, he couldn't help smiling.

They were finally catching on.

That made it interesting.

* * *

Dinah's heart was pounding hard in her chest as she listened to the last bell ring, ending the school day. '_Why_ did I tell Gabby all of that? She probably thinks I'm crazy, now. I bet she doesn't even believe me. I don't blame her. The whole stupid thing sounds like it's off a soap opera. These are the days of my life...'

Everyone else was already moving towards the door, but Dinah hardly stirred.

She figured she was the first person in all of history who wanted the school day to last longer... and she had for two days in a row.

Maybe she _was_ crazy, after all.

She took as long as humanly possible to get her things put away. When no one was looking, she dumped everything back out and started the process over again. Mr. Goodwin frowned at her and crossed his arms impatiently, as he waited for her to finish.

The sight was intimidating, but that was what Dinah was counting on. Gabby would never venture inside the classroom, and if she just took long enough, maybe her friend would think that she had already left. As she put her last book in her bag, she tried to catch a glimpse of the hallway beyond the door.

Mr. Goodwin caught the glance and followed it with his eyes, leaning forward a little as he turned to his left.

While her teacher was looking the other direction, Dinah dumped everything from her bag for the second time.

* * *

Gabby was still waiting with her shoulder against the wall across from her friend's classroom. Math was one of Dinah's worst subjects, and Mr. Goodwin wasn't exactly the nicest teacher, but surely he wouldn't have kept her this late.

She frowned in anxiety as the minutes stretched on. 'Maybe Dinah already left,' she thought to herself. She only entertained the thought for a few seconds before shaking it away. Dinah had detention after school, and it really wasn't her style to skip it. Besides, she had seemed so worried about what Ms. Gordon would do if she got angry that Gabby was sure she wouldn't ditch.

Gabby's frown deepened as she thought of Ms. Gordon. Sure, she was strict, but Dinah had always insisted that she was much cooler outside of school... and she had certainly never acted afraid of her when Gabby was around. Was Ms. Gordon acting differently since Dinah's mom came back or was Dinah the one acting different? She kind of figured it was a bit of both, but, in any case, her best friend was certainly terrified.

Gabby turned so that her back was against the wall and leaned against it as she considered. She didn't want to get Dinah into any trouble, but she wanted to make sure that Ms. Gordon hadn't turned psycho or something. Gabby had known a girl once, whose parents had hurt her badly. She had always wondered why she didn't see that anything was wrong...

Patrick said hi as he walked passed, and Gabby waved back at him absently. The hall was already beginning to clear out. As Patrick went out the big doors at the front of the school, Gabby suddenly realized that she was the only student left. There were probably more somewhere, but they had all reached their tutoring sessions or detentions or sports... or whatever it was that people did at a school after classes. Gabby usually didn't wait around, so she wasn't really sure.

Dinah had seemed worried that Ms. Gordon wouldn't let her live with her more than anything else... but still... It was hard to tell about those things. What if Dinah was being hurt?

Her mind made up, Gabby stood up straight and walked resolutely to Ms. Gordon's classroom. She found the redhead clearing the board as the last of her students left.

"Ms. Gordon?" she asked.

"Gabby," Barbara said, smiling and maneuvering her chair farther away to erase something about the nature of truth. "What can I do for you?"

Gabby tilted her head a little, trying to gauge the teacher's character. "I was supposed to meet Dinah, but I just remembered that I told my mom I'd go straight home to help her with something," she lied smoothly, trying not to implicate her friend in case she was ditching.

An idea struck her as she stood there, and she had to resist the temptation to smile evilly. "Could you tell her that I can't go shopping with her today like I said at lunch, and that we can go tomorrow after her detention?"

"Oh, the two of you are going shopping?" Barbara asked, stopping in mid erase. To Gabby, she seemed surprised, but pleased and almost relieved.

"Yeah, is that okay?"

"Of course," Barbara assured her, getting back to the board. "I'm glad that she feels like going out. She's been rather depressed lately." There was no mistaking the lingering concern in her voice.

"Yeah, no kidding," Gabby said, no longer suspicious of the redhead. "She told me about her mom today."

Barbara smiled in relief, once again turning to the teenager. Maybe Dinah was finally beginning to admit her grief for her mother and anger towards Al Hawke. "She must really trust you," she said, looking at Gabby seriously. "I don't think she's told anyone else about it. It's good that she has you to be there for her."

Gabby smiled in pride. "Thanks. You'll tell her about shopping?" she asked, blissfully aware that she had covered for her friend's absence, reassured herself that Ms. Gordon wasn't hurting her, and probably tricked her friend into at least talking with her again. She figured that Dinah would probably go to the mall with her if only to avoid disappointing her guardian... and even if Dinah didn't want to come, she still had to talk to her to tell her that she wasn't coming, right?

"I'll let her know," Ms. Gordon reassured her.

As Gabby walked away, she couldn't help thinking to herself, 'I am _good_!'

* * *

By the time Dinah left the classroom, Mr. Goodwin was openly glaring at her, his arms crossed angrily in front of him. His face had turned red, and Dinah couldn't help but picture smoke coming out of his ears.

Laughing at the mental picture did not make Mr. Goodwin any less mad.

Which only made his face turn even more red and made her laugh harder.

Recognizing a situation that could only get worse, she hurried out of the class so quickly that she was almost running and made her way to her detention. She thought that she would probably stop by Barbara's class and let her know that she wanted to walk home again. She was about to step in, when she recognized Gabby's voice. She stopped herself just in time and ducked out of a direct line of sight.

As she tried not to panic, thinking of ways to get passed the door without her friend noticing, bits of conversation drifted towards her.

"She's been rather depressed lately," she heard Barbara say.

"Yeah, no kidding. She told me about her mom today."

Dinah's eyes shot wide open as she realized that Gabby was telling Barbara about their conversation at lunch. She panicked at the thought of Barbara's reaction even as her heart broke at her friend's betrayal.

Dinah was suddenly nauseous and her heart started beating rapidly. She began to tremble from the combined effects of adrenaline and raw terror. Quickly, she steeled herself against the emotions raging through her body and walked the direction opposite her detention, back the way she had come. She was full out running by the time she reached the school doors.

Once outside, she slowed and began to take deep breaths to calm herself. She walked around the outside of the school to one of the side entrances and went back in to make her way to the classroom in which the detention would be held by the assistant principal. The class was half full already, and just about everyone who was going to show up was there. The assistant principal was sitting behind the desk in front of the room doing some paperwork and looked up when Dinah entered. He looked up at the clock, and she found her gaze following fearfully.

3:13. She still had two minutes. The assistant principal looked back at her and gestured vaguely towards the desks in the room, and went back to his work. As she quickly made her way to a table at the back of the room, she didn't notice the two football players she was walking between until it was too late.

"Freak," one of them muttered.

"Bitch," the other one said quietly. "Don't think we've all forgotten what you did to Rick and John."

"Why, you jealous, boys?" she said just as quietly, not even slowing.

Her already rapidly beating heart felt like it was going to explode out of her chest as she continued making her way to a seat in the back of the room. What if the assistant principal heard her? What if he told Barbara? What if Barbara thought she was making more trouble?

And _what_ was up with that comeback? It sounded like something Helena would say.

What would happen when the football team followed through on its promises? She had no doubt that some of the guys would try something, and she was sure she could handle herself... but what if Barbara kicked her out for getting into another fight? She quickly sat herself down in the back of the classroom and folded her hands in front of her to keep them from shaking.

Had Gabby told Barbara everything? 'Oh, man, why did I tell Gabby? Barbara's going to think that I don't trust her or that I'm ungrateful or that I can't handle what's going on. Maybe Christina was right and I should have told them all everything from the beginning.'

Dinah ran a hand through her hair and sighed in frustration. 'Yeah, like that would've helped! I told them that I didn't want to go with Canary and Barbara made me go anyway. They were going to let her take me away. And now she has anyway, because Barbara and Helena still won't let me help and they don't want me. Canary was just like the Redmonds! They couldn't stand my powers and she thought they weren't enough. Geez! What if Barbara and Helena send me back to the Redmonds?'

'Hold up, Dinah, remember what Barbara always says. Clear head. You can figure this out. You've got an hour before Barbara picks you up.' The blonde took several deep, cleansing breaths, and her hands slowly began to quit shaking.

She needed to be calm. She needed a plan.


	9. Chapter 9

The problem, Dinah decided, with making plans was that people need at least a little information to start with. As she sat in the back of the classroom waiting for her detention to end and Barbara to pick her up, she vaguely wished that she had her guardian on her side. Then she sighed in frustration as she realized that she didn't even know whether Barbara was on her side or not.

'Even that would be enough information to make a plan!' she thought, running her hand through her hair. 'But I don't even know how much Gabby told her. She might not even be mad at me. If only there was some way to find out...'

'Oh, duh!' Dinah thought to herself, slapping her palm against her forehead. It made an audible thwack, and some of the people in front of her turned around.

Quickly, Dinah looked away and subconsciously crossed her arms in front of her chest, leaning back against her seat. One of the football players who had given her trouble earlier flipped her off, carefully keeping his body in between the gesture and the assistant principal seated at the front of the class. The angle between Dinah and the teacher would enable him to see anything she did back, so she just ignored it.

After a few moments, everyone lost interest and turned forward again. The assistant principal watched for another minute, but when he went back to his work Dinah got back to her thinking... much more cautiously. The last thing she wanted was to draw attention to herself and give them a reason to say something to Barbara.

'Okay, the plan's gotta be to find out what Barbara knows,' Dinah thought to herself. 'And if she knows everything, I'll...' Her thoughts trailed off as she realized sadly that she didn't know what she'd do. She didn't want to leave. She didn't have anywhere else to go... and she liked it there.

She used to be happy there.

Shaking the thoughts away, she tried to come up with a way to find out what Barbara knew without tipping her off.

* * *

Barbara was making a right turn near the cemetery when her comm went off. Before she could even reach up to turn the microphone on, her brain was whirring away recalling where her girls were. Helena was working a shift at the bar and would be at the clocktower for dinner. Dinah was still at the school waiting for Barbara to pick her up. Neither of those spots seemed to be inherently dangerous, but one could never be certain. The light ahead of her turned red, and after stopping her car, she reached up and turned the microphone on.

"Oracle here."

:: Hey, Oracle. It's Huntress.::

"Is everything all right?"

:: Yeah, fine. Okay, I just saw the _funniest_ thing!::

"At the bar?"

:: No, at the police station. Of course at the bar! Where else have I been all day?::

Barbara rolled her eyes. "Well, you could have been-"

:: So, it must be the end of finals or something, because there are a bunch of college people here playing drinking games.::

"Well, at the university in New Gotham-"

:: Two of them decide to start taking shots,:: Helena continued, ignoring her mentor for the second time. :: So, this one guy is a little overweight and an obvious drinker, but this other guy is really small and skinny and already looks gone. They order a couple of shots, and I'm not even kidding, this skinny guy lost count of how many he'd had after one. He turns to his friend and says 'Hey, we've had three!' His friend sets him straight and says they've only had one so the guy says okay. Then after another few seconds, the guy says 'But at least I've had two!' His friend sets him straight a second time, and the guy says, 'Well... I've _definitely_ had one!'::

Barbara chuckled and wondered distantly how much longer the red light was going to last.

:: Everyone in the bar was laughing at the poor guy by then. So, I pour them both a second one and both guys drink it, and then the skinny guy looks at his friend and says, 'The glass is crying!' His friend assures him that it isn't, but the guy says, 'Yes it is. See, it's all wet.' His friend starts laughing at him, and this girl feels bad for him and says that it's just condensation. The skinny guy just looks confused, so she sighs says, 'The glass is just wet. It's not crying.'::

Barbara said "Uh-huh," to show that she was still listening and secretly related to the girl who had to change her explanation.

:: I wanted to cut him off, but Leonard said to keep pouring, so I did. But the skinny guy just stared at the shot, without drinking it. After a while he got up and walked away somewhere. So his friend downs the shot. But then the skinny guy comes back and gets really mad. He says, 'Now we're not even!' His friend says, 'Yeah, you're right,' and then downs _his own_ shot, too! And then the skinny guy was okay with it! It was like they were all even, then, even though his friend had downed twice as much as he had.::

Barbara laughed. "What are you doing now?"

:: Nothing,:: Helena said, her disgust carrying over the communication system. :: Some church group just came in, and they're not drinking anything.::

"Ah," Barbara said, finally understanding. "You called me over comms because you're bored."

:: Oracle, you don't understand!:: Helena insisted. She paused, and then almost whined, :: No one's even being annoying or rude.::

"You'd prefer obnoxious customers over boredom?"

:: Hey, I'm a crime-fighter. My tolerance for rude comments is much higher than it is for boredom.::

Barbara laughed, shaking her head. "I know your tolerance for rude comments. Need I remind you of that ice cream man?"

:: Well... that just shows you how much I suck at being bored.::

"Any word from Detective Reese?" Barbara asked, making conversation as she waited at the stoplight. It was taking so long! Briefly, she considered digging her laptop out from the back seat and hacking into the city system to turn the light green, but she was always telling Helena and Dinah not to abuse their powers so she decided against it to set a good example.

That, and by the time she had finished, the light would probably already be green, anyway.

:: Not a peep,:: Helena said, bringing her mind back to the conversation. :: Still no leads, but no more missing kids, either.::

"That's good news. Maybe the added vigilance of the parents and teachers is paying off, and there won't be any more abductions." Barbara paused, drumming her fingers against the steering wheel, and then added, "I talked to Gabby today."

:: Dinah's friend? Why? You know she's going to be pissed, don't you?::

"Gabby talked to me," Barbara clarified, a little insulted. "I wasn't trying to get information about Dinah. Why is that what you automatically assumed?"

:: Well, you _are_ the Oracle,:: Helena reminded her.

The redhead started to retort, shrugged, and then mentally conceded the point.

"Gabby said that she and Dinah were planning on shopping this afternoon, but she had to reschedule for tomorrow."

:: At least she's getting out of the tower.::

"And that's not all," Barbara said, smiling broadly. "Gabby told me before she left that Dinah told her about Carolyn."

:: Hey, that's great!:: Helena said, sharing her enthusiasm. :: She's finally talking to someone!::

"It's definitely a step in the right direction," Barbara agreed.

Helena said something back, but Barbara couldn't hear it over a loud tap on her window. She looked out to her left, but all she saw was empty street between herself and the cemetery. It was more than a little ominous to suddenly realize that she was the only car on the road when something strange had just hit the driver's side window. Shaking her head, she looked forward and waited for a few seconds. When the tap came a second time, she caught a small brown blur out of the corner of her eye.

"Hold on a second, Huntress, something is hitting my window."

:: Do you need help?::

"I don't think so," Barbara answered. She immediately resented the question, but she knew that Helena didn't mean anything by it, so she didn't make an issue out of it.

She cautiously rolled down her window, and when the next projectile came towards her, she caught it deftly in her left hand. She brought it closer to her face for a better look. 'What the hell?' she thought in confusion.

Another blur came straight at her, and she dropped the first one in her lap to catch the second one before it hit her. Finally, understanding dawned on her and she leaned her head out the window to get a better look.

A small squirrel was standing on its hind legs, balancing on a branch hanging over the entrance to the cemetery. It chattered down at her angrily, and raised another acorn with its paws.

Barbara looked up at it and glared the look that she gave Helena when she touched the Delphi. "I wouldn't risk it!" she warned. "You should be ashamed of yourself. If you had waited another few seconds, the light would have turned green and I would have left anyway."

The squirrel dropped to all fours, the potential missile in its paws forgotten. It lowered its head and its tail drooped in obvious dejection.

The redhead was immediately remorseful. "I'm not angry with you," she added hurriedly. "But you could have hurt someone. And what if someone decided to throw something back at you and you were hurt?"

The squirrel seemed to brighten as it clambered away. Smiling, Barbara leaned back into the car and rolled her window up. She started when she realized that the light was green, and wondered how long it had been that way. It was a good thing there was no one else on the street.

"Okay, Huntress, what were you saying?" Barbara asked, pulling away from the light.

:: Just that some people are beginning to wonder why I respond to the voices in my head.::

"They're not wondering if you hear voices?"

:: Nah,:: Helena said. :: They know me too well.::

Barbara laughed. She briefly considered scolding her for using the communication system in front of other people, but decided that her friend was just joking. "We'll see you at dinner?"

:: 'Course. Alfred's cooking, right?::

Barbara started to take offense, and then decided that it wasn't really worth it. "Who else?"

:: I'll be there then. Huntress out.::

Barbara turned off the microphone on the communication system piece as she approached the school.

Dinah was just coming out of the school doors as the redhead pulled up. When she caught sight of her guardian, she hesitated for a split second before waving and continuing to the Hummer.

Barbara caught it and wondered if something had happened.

"Hey, Barbara," Dinah said as she opened the door and piled into the passenger seat, closing the door behind her.

"Hi," the redhead greeted, looking away to check traffic. As she pulled back onto the street, she added "How was detention?"

"Detention," Dinah said succinctly, putting her seatbelt on. Based on the short answer, Barbara thought that her charge was going to avoid discussion, but was pleasantly surprised when the teen turned to her and asked, "How was your day?"

"Uneventful," Barbara answered. "Helena says that there aren't any new leads on the abduction cases, but no more children have gone missing, either."

"That's good at least," Dinah said, her voice full of relief.

Barbara, encouraged by how talkative her charge suddenly was, continued. "And Gabby stopped by my class after school to give you a message."

To her surprise, Dinah started and then looked away.

"She said to let you know that she can't go shopping this afternoon, but the two of you can go tomorrow."

Dinah frowned and looked straight ahead without responding.

The second sudden change in her charge's behavior confused Barbara. Until a minute ago, Dinah had seemed to be making progress. She had opened up to Gabby and was actually using complete sentences without seeming angry or nervous. Was she this saddened by a rain check? Or had something else happened?

"Is everything okay?" the redhead asked concernedly.

Dinah's gaze jerked back towards her and the teen said a little too quickly, "Yes. It's just... I already said that we should go tomorrow night... because it's not a school night... and she said that she couldn't go."

The hurried and disjointed answer suggested that it wasn't true, yet Dinah certainly did look a little bewildered which supported the answer.

"She probably got her days confused," she finally commented. "She told me that she had just realized that she was supposed to help her mother with something right after school, so she couldn't meet you like the two of you had planned."

Dinah was quiet for several long moments, and then Barbara heard her ask tentatively, "So, she stopped by your classroom?"

Barbara frowned. Hadn't she just said that? Out of the corner of her eye, she could tell that her charge still wasn't looking at her, and the frown eased into a look of concern. "Yes. I take it that the two of you have made up."

The long pause before Dinah's answer spoke volumes.

"Yeah," the answer finally came. "You were right. She accepted my apology."

Barbara stole a quick glance at her charge and started. It could have been Helena, at that same age, sitting there. The guarded expression that was an obvious poker face and the tentative questions were what she and Alfred had secretly dubbed "target questioning."

It was what Helena did when she wasn't sure how much her guardian knew. She would ask questions, dancing around the actual topic. It had reminded Barbara of a target, due to the concentric circles that gradually got smaller as they moved towards the center. But, the center was always something her protégée didn't want to admit to, so it always remained blank. The trick was to keep Helena talking and try to find what the questions were avoiding.

"Gabby said that you told her about Carolyn," Barbara said, repeating the only information she knew in an effort to continue the conversation. "That the two of you talked and then decided to go shopping."

"Yeah," her charge said, much to Barbara's chagrin still looking out the window and absently fingering the zipper on her backpack.

"Did you tell her everything?"

Dinah shrugged, but seemed to relax at the question.

'So, she was wondering how much Gabby told me,' Barbara realized, relieved that she had pinpointed the source of her charge's sudden discomfort. 'It must have been a very unpleasant surprise when I said that Gabby came to my classroom.'

'But what could Dinah have possibly told Gabby that she didn't want me to know?' Barbara wondered, purposely not frowning and keeping her body language neutral in case the teen happened to glance over. If she was already nervous, it wouldn't do for her to think that Barbara was angry with her.

And she certainly had been nervous about something Gabby now knew, but neither Barbara nor Helena did. It couldn't have been any of the details of her mother's murder; Helena had been there and Barbara had heard it all over comms... But it must have at least been related, because that's what Gabby had said the two of them had discussed.

All of a sudden, Barbara realized that the blank spot at the center of the target had to do with the reason Dinah had seemed so upset. And that reason was one that Dinah had admitted to Gabby but was apparently terrified to let Barbara, Helena, or Alfred find out.

Barbara struggled not to frown as she thought that through. It was true that Gabby was Dinah's peer as well as her friend, but the redhead had a gut feeling that wasn't the only reason Dinah had opened up to her. Gabby was separated from the happenings at the tower and was most likely not to have the power to hurt her with the information. It was the same reason people tend to open up to complete strangers on planes or in waiting rooms; they think that they will never see those people again.

But that implied the reason Dinah was upset was such that she expected it to hurt her if Barbara, Helena, or Alfred knew. It very likely had to do with a member of their unorthodox family. Even if the only way it involved them was the fact that Dinah believed they would judge her for it.

She considered her next course of action as they pulled up to the clocktower. Dinah was currently having problems functioning under whatever issue she was dealing with and the fear that this issue would be discovered. The obvious solution was to confront Dinah about it and help her with it. But, on the other hand, pushing too quickly would only discourage communication by setting the precedent that it was an unpleasant experience. And, if Dinah had been that fearful Barbara would find out what was wrong, she was likely to become defensive if the redhead prodded for information.

Barbara decided to let her off the hook. "Well, it's good that the two of you are on good terms again. And it's good for you to get out of the tower every once in a while."

Dinah nodded distantly as the Hummer came to a stop, and tried not to look like she was totally confused. Barbara wouldn't make something like that up... so Gabby had obviously told her that they had planned on going shopping. And, knowing Gabby, she probably had asked Barbara ahead of time so Dinah couldn't make excuses. Shaking her head, she wondered _why_ she had thought having a smart friend was an advantage.

But, at least that meant that she hadn't told Barbara everything.

The sudden absence of fear and the confusion about her friend's message made her giddy and it was all she could do to not giggle out loud. 'Well, it looks like I'm going shopping,' she thought, shrugging. 'Worse things could happen.'

Dinah opened the door and stepped out of the car. Putting her bag on her shoulder, she waited patiently for Barbara.

"Is Helena coming to dinner?" she asked, trying to change the subject.

"Does she _ever_ miss a dinner when Alfred cooks?" Barbara answered, the lift lowering herself and her chair to the ground. "She's probably already here."

They entered the elevator together and as the doors shut, Barbara asked, "Is anyone giving you a hard time about the fight?"

Dinah started and felt herself pale as the fear washed back over her. Had the assistant principal told her about what happened during the detention? She looked away and shrugged noncommittally. As the elevator doors opened, she felt Barbara's hand on her arm and knew that her guardian was about to say something, so she jumped out to put physical and emotional distance between them.

True to Barbara's prediction, Helena was already waiting at the table. Dinah heard Barbara sigh, but she let go whatever she had been about to say.

"What took you guys so long?" the brunette asked in a tone of irritation that the teen knew was only half teasing.

"You two go ahead and start," Barbara said, ignoring the question. "I'm going to freshen up."

Dinah nodded.

"If you insist," Helena said, smirking.

Barbara wheeled out of the room and Dinah dropped her backpack in the middle of the floor. Then she remembered that it always made Alfred and Barbara mad, so she picked it back up and carried it with her to the table.

"So, kid. You in trouble?" Helena asked.

Dinah started and stared at her friend for a long time before answering. All of the terror came rushing back to her, and her stomach began to get queasy. What if Gabby _had_ told Barbara everything and Barbara and told Helena and they were waiting to double team her?

"For what?" she asked timidly, her voice shaking a little.

"The fight!" Helena said, smiling enthusiastically. "Barbara says that you kicked ass!"

Dinah laughed in relief and raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"Well, she said you did very well, and in Barbara talk it means the same thing," Helena clarified.

Dinah nodded; she had to give her that one. She grinned. "You should've seen it. I rocked!"

Helena laughed. "So how much time did you get?" she asked.

"Time?"

"Yeah, how long are you grounded for?" Helena asked, digging in to her meatloaf.

"Uh, actually," Dinah stuttered, "I'm not... I don't think. Barbara says it's a probationary grounding."

"What's that mean?" Helena wondered, cocking her head in confusion.

"I'm not sure," Dinah admitted, putting food on her plate as an excuse to look down. "But she's letting me go shopping with Gabby tomorrow. She says as long as I don't do anything else, it'll all be okay."

"That's so not fair!" Helena whined. "I got tons worse whenever I got into fights! Not only did she ground me, but she made me do katas the whole time instead of regular training."

"They were supposed to teach you control," Barbara said, wheeling back into the room. She maneuvered her chair to the table and made the transfer. "But it's not going to happen again, is it?" she asked Dinah pointedly.

The teen gulped and shook her head. But as she remembered the promise that the football players made to her, she knew she couldn't assure Barbara that it wouldn't. And what about what Helena said? Had Barbara really punished Helena for real? Why didn't Dinah ever have to do katas? Did that mean that she cared about Helena more than herself?

Dinah shook her head at herself ruefully, suddenly aware that she was upset that Barbara hadn't punished her worse. That didn't make any sense. She was a teenager, for crying out loud! And, anyway, the Redmonds had punished her lots worse, and they certainly hadn't loved her more, had they? At least Barbara and Helena didn't seem mad at her.

Unable to reconcile all of the different emotions she was experiencing, she stared at her plate and began pushing the meatloaf with her fork.

Maybe it would be nice to get out of the tower after all.


	10. Chapter 10

I still don't own any characters… shocking, I know… I'm sure y'all expected me to buy them before I updated (which might have explained the delay)… but the WB and DC Comics still owns 'em. I'm just borrowing them and will return them in more or less the same condition I found them.

Oh, and still thanks to SamIAm4 for the help.

And thanks to Tigerkid14 and rain1657 for the kind reviews.

* * *

For the first time in days, Dinah heard a school bell without a sense of dread or impending disaster. Before she even got to the cafeteria, she saw a familiar head of curly blond hair. 

"Gabby!"

"Hi," she said cheerfully, leaning against the wall next to Dinah's locker. "I thought that you might wanna eat outside today."

Dinah raised an eyebrow, and started putting her combination into the lock. "What gave you that idea?" she asked sarcastically. "I've totally got a cheering section every time I walk by the football team."

"Exactly," Gabby said, laughing.

Soon they were walking to the doors, and Dinah asked half suspiciously and half playfully, "So what exactly did you tell Barbara? And why does she think we're going shopping today?"

"That, my friend," Gabby said, dramatically swinging open the doors, "was a masterpiece. _Shakespeare_ could not have thought better on his feet."

"And just how did this supposed masterpiece end up taking one of my Friday nights?" Dinah asked teasingly, stepping through the doors and out into the open.

"First, I covered for not being able to find you after school-" As Gabby trailed off, she stopped walking and turned to her friend. "Where were you?"

"Mr. Goodwin was mad at me," Dinah said truthfully. She just didn't add the part about her teacher being angry with her because she wouldn't leave.

"Well, anyway, I wasn't sure if you'd ditched," Gabby said, guiding them both to the shade of a tree. "So I said that I had to meet my mom so I couldn't talk to you after school. Then I asked her to tell you that I couldn't go shopping with you after your detention and we could go today. And then, for the sympathy factor, I told her that you had just told me about your mom passing away… you know, in case you were in trouble or something for the fight."

"That is a masterpiece," Dinah admitted grudgingly, "but you should've just told me. When Barbara told me that you stopped by her class, I was afraid that you'd told her everything."

"Me?" Gabby asked indignantly, putting her hands on her hips.

Dinah sighed sadly and sat down under the tree. "I'm sorry. Things haven't been making much sense lately."

"I can imagine," Gabby commented, sitting down next to her. Then she shook her head. "Actually, no, I can't. I have no idea what you must be going through."

Dinah shrugged and leaned her back against the tree trunk. "You know what it's like?" she asked, staring straight ahead.

"No, what's it like?" Gabby asked softly.

"I keep having this dream where my mom comes and takes me away from Barbara and Helena and Alfred. My mom just kind of drags me into this darkness and I feel like I'm spinning away… and then, when I wake up, I still feel it."

"The darkness?"

"No," Dinah said, making eye contact with her friend for a moment. "The spinning."

"Oh," was all Gabby could think of to say.

Dinah laughed at the obvious confusion in her friend's voice. "You know that saying about that Irish drunk guy? You know, that an Irishman isn't drunk as long as he can hold on to a single blade of grass and not fall off the face of the Earth?"

Gabby laughed. "Yeah, I know that one."

"That's what I feel like," Dinah explained. "Like, no one can see what's wrong because they're all walking. But, to me, the ground's spinning, so I'm holding on as tight as I can…"

"To your mom?"

"No!" Dinah said, adamantly shaking her head. "Barbara and Helena and Alfred. It's like they were the blades of grass keeping me stable, and my mom came and tried to cut me away."

"She kinda did, huh?"

Dinah nodded. "Barbara and Helena keep thinking that I'm messed up because my mom died… but, honestly…"

"It's that your mom came," Gabby finished, finally understanding.

"Does that make me a bad person?" Dinah asked, looking at her friend pleadingly.

"To want to stay with a family that loves you?" Gabby asked skeptically. "That just makes you human."

Dinah shrugged and looked away. Then she asked softly, "What if Barbara and Helena don't see it that way?"

"Is that why you were afraid I'd told Ms. Gordon?" Gabby asked.

Dinah nodded, looking down and absentmindedly playing with a piece of grass.

"Ms. Gordon was really worried about you when I talked to her," Gabby finally commented, choosing her words carefully. "She wants you to be okay. I don't think she'd judge you for not wanting to be with your mom. And, maybe, the way you've been acting has them afraid that you don't trust them enough to talk to them. It might make them think that you don't think of them as family anymore."

Dinah's gaze jerked towards her. "I never thought of it that way…"

"Have you tried talking with them?"

Dinah's back stiffened against the tree trunk and she pulled her legs to her chest. She shook her head and looked at the school in front of her, her eyes subconsciously straying to the windows of Barbara's classroom. "It's too hard. And it doesn't make a difference when I talk to them. When I told them that I didn't want to go with my mom, they were going to make me go, anyway."

"They thought that she was your family. Maybe you need to tell them different."

Dinah shrugged and began to squirm, so Gabby let it go.

* * *

As soon as the bell rang signaling the end of the school day, Rusty raced outside. 

His teacher stood up hastily to tell him to slow down, but just sank back down into her chair. 'The hell with it,' she thought to herself. 'It's Friday; let them all run if they want to.'

He started to walk home and was all the way at the school gate before he remembered that he was supposed to wait for Christina. He really wanted to go play at the park, but last time his sister got really mad at him and told Dad, and then Dad had been really mad at him, too. So he walked back to the school buildings and sat down by the sign, pulling out a Looney Tunes comic book from his back pocket.

Christina was always late because the High School teachers didn't let her go as early as his teachers did. Rusty had told her to tell them that he had to wait for her so that maybe they would let her go earlier, but Christina just said that it didn't work that way. He figured that maybe they all got into trouble, and that was why the teachers kept them so long after school was out. But he was a good brother; he didn't want to get Christina in trouble with Mom or Dad, so he didn't say anything.

Most of the kids were gone, except for a few waiting by the school sign, when a man Rusty didn't recognize walked up to them.

"Will?" the man asked to a kid next to Rusty from a different class.

The blond haired boy looked up. "Yeah?"

"Your mom told me to come and take you home because she's running late at the doctor."

Will's eyes widened. "The doctor?"

"Yeah," the man said soberly. "She's sick so she told me to take you home."

"Oh," Will said, standing up. "Is she okay?"

"I don't know," the man said. "Why don't you come with me and we'll go see her together."

Will nodded, so the man took his hand and they started walking away.

Something about this was sounding awfully familiar to Rusty for some reason. "Wait!" he suddenly cried out, remembering what his sister had told him.

Both the man and Will stopped.

"Do you have the password?" Rusty asked anxiously.

"Password?" the man asked, looking down at the little boy who was holding his hand.

"My dad says that if anyone's mom or dad gets hurt, they'll send someone with the password."

Will looked at both of them skeptically, but then his eyes gleamed with the fun of it. "Yeah! What's the password?"

Rusty nodded emphatically and looked up at the man expectantly.

The strange man looked annoyed and angry. "Did your mom give you a password?" he asked, looking down at Will. It reminded Rusty of the grown-up voice his mom used when she talked to his dad before she said "I'm NOT yelling!"

Will shook his head.

"Well, then, why would she give me a password that you don't know?"

Rusty scratched his head. He had to admit, he didn't know that one.

"We'd better get going," the man said.

Will nodded, and the two of them walked away together, leaving Rusty with the feeling that something hadn't been quite right. He watched them get into a car and drive away, still trying to put his finger on it. Right as the car faded from sight, he caught a look at the license plate and burst out laughing.

"He named his car after a putty tat," he said out loud, settling back down near the school sign. He cocked his head and gave it another few seconds of thought, and then shrugged and opened his comic book back up.

Maybe Christina would take him to play at the park.

* * *

"So, then the kid growls, 'I am the Batman! Half man, half bat! I fly through the night to stop bad guys and suck their blood!'" 

Gabby laughed as they waited at the red light. "It's so cute when little kids believe in stuff like Batman or the tooth fairy."

Dinah laughed out loud and made a mental note to tell Helena that Gabby had just compared her father to the tooth fairy… and wondered how long it would take for the picture of a pink batman with delicate white wings to get out her head. Now there was an image to strike fear into the hearts of evil doers.

"You know how long it's been since you've laughed at anything?" Gabby asked.

Dinah shrugged and looked away. The light turned green and the car began to move forward, but she could still feel her friend's gaze.

Sighing loudly, she said, "Okay, you win. I really needed to get out."

Gabby didn't say a word but smiled in self appreciation.

Dinah scowled playfully. "But you didn't need to trick me into it," she insisted. "I would've gone."

Gabby raised an eyebrow and risked a glance at her friend.

Dinah laughed. "Okay, maybe not-" she stopped and looked out the window. "Hey, drop me off here."

"Why?" Gabby asked, slowing down. "We're still a few blocks away."

"I want to say hi to Christina and Rusty," Dinah said.

"Who?" Gabby wondered, pulling over.

"Christina's a freshman in one of Barbara's classes. Her little brother was the kid I was telling you about," Dinah explained, pointing to a curly haired blond girl arguing with a blond little boy. "I'll call you later, okay?"

"Sure," Gabby said. "See you later."

Dinah got out and shut the door behind her, waving through the window as Gabby drove away. She quickly crossed the street to the small playground, where Christina and Rusty were arguing.

"You said I could play at the park!" Rusty insisted, almost in tears.

"You _did_ play at the park," Christina replied exasperatedly.

"Only five minutes!"

"We've been here for half an hour!"

"Hey, you guys," Dinah said, walking up to them. "What's wrong?"

"Hi, Dinah," Christina said, shrugging. "Rusty wants to keep playing, but I've got things to do. No big deal. How's that stuff going with Ms. Gordon?"

"Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that," Dinah said, looking away. "Um... thanks for listening the other day. I wasn't very nice to you when we were talking or yesterday in the cafeteria-"

"No problem," Christina said, cutting her off. "It's personal stuff so I shouldn't have asked. I was just already in big sister mode and remembered that you're supposed to comfort others with the comfort you've received... and kind of didn't think about the fact that we don't know each other too well."

"Big sister mode?" Dinah asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm older than you."

Christina shrugged, unperturbed. "Big sister mode is hardly ever for Rusty," she explained. "Something bugs him, everyone knows it. Nah, mostly it's just for listening to our parents unload some stuff."

Dinah didn't know what to say to that. But she still felt bad, so she said, "Why don't you go home and I can watch Rusty while he plays. In another half hour, I'll walk him home."

Christina frowned, but Dinah could tell she was already sold on the idea. "I don't know… are you sure?"

"Yeah," Dinah assured her, shrugging and rearranging the strap of her purse on her shoulder. "I don't feel like going home quite yet, and I bet Rusty knows the way home from here."

"I sure do!" the little boy chirped, recognizing a situation that would let him keep playing at the park.

"Well… okay," Christina finally said. "But, Rusty, you don't give Dinah any trouble, okay? When she says it's time to go home, you go right home!"

"Okay," he readily assented, running off.

"Rusty!" Christina called after him. "Promise?"

The little boy stopped just long enough to turn around and give a hurried, "Promise!" before he started playing on the monkey bars.

"Thanks a _ton_!" Christina said.

"No problem," Dinah answered. "I'll walk him home in half an hour."

As Rusty played, Dinah sat herself at one of the wooden picnic tables and looked through her bags and then her purse.

She was thoroughly bored in less than a minute.

"Hey, Dinah?" Rusty called, making her look up.

"Yeah?"

"Do you know how to play Batman?" he asked solemnly, hanging upside down from the monkey bars.

Dinah shook her head. She had a feeling she was going to regret it (especially if it involved hanging upside down to sleep), but she asked, "How do you play?"

Rusty reached up and grabbed the monkey bars with his hands and quickly unhooked his knees from the bars and dropped to the ground. "It's easy. We've just got to beat the bad guys."

To demonstrate, he gave a mighty kick and a punch to fell invisible opponents. "See?"

Dinah nodded and abandoned her shopping bag and purse, walking closer. "What do you know about Batman?"

"He's a good guy," Rusty answered confidently. "He helped people."

At least the kid had the essentials down. "That's true. But Batman was just a regular guy. He had help from lots of people… and I think that they could even beat him."

Rusty cocked his head. "Beat Batman?" he asked incredulously.

Dinah nodded soberly. "Yeah. See, Batman left a while ago, so now other people protect the city."

"Why'd he leave?"

"Some people that he loved got hurt."

"Were they hurt bad?"

Dinah nodded solemnly.

Rusty considered this, cocking his head. Finally, frowning, he commented slowly, "Christina says that you need to be extra nice to people when they're hurt. She says that's when they need help."

"That's true," Dinah told him, sitting down on one of the swings. "I think he thought that staying wouldn't help them... That staying would only hurt them worse."

"That's what Dad said," Rusty said sadly. "He said that staying wouldn't help things. So he left."

For a moment, Dinah was stunned into silence. This was most definitely not what she had intended to do by telling the little boy about Batman and heroes. Horrified, she thought to herself, 'Great! I'm with the kid _five minutes_ and I've made him cry! Geez, Dinah, no wonder people don't like having you around for very long!'

"I wish he had stayed," he said quietly. "I'm mad at him for going. I miss him." He looked away and wiped at his eyes absently, adding as if defending himself, "Christina says that's okay."

"Oh, it is, sweetie," Dinah was quick to assure him, enveloping the little boy in a hug. "It's okay to be mad at someone and still want to get to know them."

As Rusty sobbed into her shoulder, Dinah wondered if it really was. Surely nothing else could be expected of this poor little kid. But if it was all right for him to feel that way… was it all right for her, too? Her first instinct was to say that it wasn't. That she shouldn't have thought such things about her mother and Barbara and Helena would be angry with her if they knew. But…

What was the difference?

As the sobbing slowly eased into hiccups, Dinah asked softly, "Do you want to go home?"

Rusty nodded into her shoulder.

Dinah eased the little boy away from her and went to pick up her shopping bag and purse. When she returned, Rusty seemed embarrassed about his display of emotion and refused to make eye contact with her. She didn't really know what to say, anyway, so she let it go and started walking in the direction she'd seen Christina take.

At the street, she remembered what the little boy's older sister had done and said, "Hold hands crossing the street."

Rusty gave her his hand without looking up. He felt her take his hand and then she stopped walking. He thought that she was only looking both ways before she crossed the street, like Mom and Dad were always reminding him, but it seemed to take an awfully long time. When he looked up, he saw Christina's friend just staring straight ahead. He tugged at her hand, but she didn't move or say anything.

He thought that saying her name would help, but all of a sudden he couldn't remember it. He finally settled on a hesitant, "Uh, lady? Are you okay?"

Then she finally let go of his hand, but instead of answering him, she took a cell phone out of her purse. He didn't see her dial, but she started talking into it, so maybe the phone number was already kept inside of it.

"Barbara… I think I've found the murderer."


	11. Chapter 11

I still don't own any of the characters.

Thanks to SamIAm4 for all the help!

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"Hey, Dinah," Christina said, standing in the doorway. "Thanks again for-"

"Rusty saw one of his friends kidnapped," Dinah said quickly. "Barbara's dad is the police commissioner, you can call him. Do you have a piece of paper? I know the phone number by heart."

"Okay..." Christina said slowly. She shook her head several times as if to clear it. "Wait. What?"

Dinah sighed heavily and stomped one foot. She didn't have time for this! She had used her comms to call Barbara at the clocktower, thankfully having the presence of mind to hastily grab her cell phone out of her purse. Barbara had told her what to tell Christina and had contacted Helena working at the Dark Horse, so all three of them could discuss what to do.

:: I still think I should tell Leonard there was a family emergency,:: Helena insisted for the millionth time.

:: We don't even know if there's anything you can do, yet,:: Barbara said impatiently. :: Stay there. Until we have something concrete to work with, it's just as well for you to stay where you are.::

Dinah was beginning to understand why Helena went off comms so often; it was hard listening to so many people at once. If she wasn't afraid of Barbara's reaction, she probably would have turned her comm off while she talked to Christina.

"Rusty saw a strange man come up to one of his friends and say that his mom was at the doctor's," she explained hurriedly. "I thought that sounded strange, so I asked Barbara, and she said that the kid is missing, so you need to call the police and have Rusty tell them what happened and give a description and all that stuff. Give me a piece of paper and I'll write down the number for you to call that goes straight to Barbara's dad. Tell the secretary that it's about his daughter, and then tell him that Barbara told you to call. He'll listen."

"Rusty, did you see one of your friends go with a stranger?" Christina asked, looking at her younger brother intently.

The little boy nodded, disinterested. "Can I go play now?"

"Yeah, go on upstairs," Christina said. "But later, you're gonna have to tell some people about it, okay?"

Rusty shrugged. "Okay," he said, going into the house.

"Come on in," Christina said, holding the door open wide. As Dinah came in, she asked, "Who's Barbara, again?"

"Ms. Gordon."

"Oh, yeah!" Christina said, slapping her forehead. She jogged into the other room and came back with a pad of paper and a pen. She handed both to Dinah and then said, "Okay. I call the number and I'll get a secretary. I tell the secretary that I need to speak..."

"To Commissioner Gordon," Dinah supplied, writing the number Barbara was giving her over her earrings. "You tell the secretary that it's about his daughter, and she'll put you through. But then you tell him that Barbara told you to call and tell them about Rusty."

Talking to Christina made Dinah lose track of the number she was writing. She panicked for a second, and then said, "Um... let's see, the number is..."

Barbara heard her and quickly repeated the number over comms.

"Oh, that's right," Dinah said, writing the rest of it. "I almost forgot it there for a second."

:: You really should memorize it,:: she heard Barbara say. :: You've already used it a few times, and someday you may need to know it.::

"You have the number memorized?" Christina asked skeptically, leaning forward to see an area code, number, and extension.

Dinah raised an eyebrow, a gesture meant more for her guardian than the person in front of her. "Yeah, hard to believe, isn't it? It's not like I'll ever need to call it."

:: Hey, I heard that. No using the conversation with a person in the field as a passive-aggressive retort.::

"Well, it sure came in handy now," Christina commented innocently.

The sound of Barbara's laughter came to Dinah through her comms.

The teen sneezed, and Christina thought it sounded strangely like the word 'hypocrite'.

"Bless you," she said.

:: Passive-agressive,:: Helena sneezed.

"Thanks," Dinah said. "I've gotta get going. Barbara's waiting for me."

"Yeah, no problem," Christina said, walking back to the door with her.

"You'll call?" Dinah asked, going out the door.

"As soon as you leave," Christina promised.

Dinah waved as she walked away and dug her cell phone back out of her purse so she could speak freely with her guardian without looking like she was crazy.

"What do I do now, Barbara?" she asked, making her to the clocktower.

:: Did the boy see any distinguishing marks?:: her guardian asked. :: Any tattoos? Did he happen to get a look at the car?::

Dinah thought back to her vision. "It was red. He's not old enough to have remembered the make or model or anything. It was fairly small... I think it was four door. He did see the license plate, though."

:: Wait,:: the teen heard Helena's voice, :: he didn't notice what kind of car it was, but he remembered the license plate number?::

"He thought it said... what's that cat that's always trying to eat Tweetie?"

:: Sylvester,:: Helena supplied.

"That's it," Dinah confirmed, waiting impatiently for the traffic at the corner of the block to thin.

:: That's too many letters. Maybe the car had a European license number…:: Barbara speculated.

"I don't know," the teen said skeptically. "Rusty's six. Maybe he just can't spell very well."

:: Good thinking,:: Barbara said quickly, making Dinah smile in pride. :: I'll try different combinations.::

:: _Now_ can I-:: Helena started.

:: No! Finish your shift.::

:: You're NO fun, Gordon.::

:: And you're no gendarme, Kyle. You need a job that pays, so save the family emergency for when it'll make a difference.::

:: You know the problem with your comebacks? No one ever has any idea what they mean.::

:: And the fact that I have to explain whether or not you've been insulted just eats you up, doesn't it?::

"Anything yet?" Dinah asked, crossing the street to get to the clocktower.

:: Luckily, most of the license plates combinations that could spell 'Sylvester' are out of state. I've got a couple of hits in the New Gotham area… only one with a red car. Was the kidnapper a Caucasian male with brown hair and eyes?::

"Yeah!" Dinah said, stopping in mid-stride right outside the door at the bottom of the tower. "Do you have an address?"

::2550 Capitol Ave.::

That was only a few blocks away. Without giving it any conscious thought, Dinah took off at a run, her shopping bag forgotten on the ground.

In the clocktower, Barbara saw Dinah's signal start moving towards the address. "Dinah, wait! You can't be sure he's the kidnapper! Get back here! I don't want you going in there alone!"

There was an audible click and the marker faded from the screen.

For a moment, Barbara just sat there staring at the screen, stunned. Then she opened her mouth and a stream of creative explicative came gushing out, ranging from Elizabethan English to French to Portuguese to good old American street slang.

:: NOW, Oracle?:: Helena asked.

"Now, Huntress," Barbara confirmed, her hands clenched tight into fists. "And I don't care if you have to take her by the heels and drag her, get Dinah and bring her home."

:: On it.::

"Problems, Miss Barbara?" Alfred asked from behind her.

Startled, Barbara looked behind her and then turned her chair around to face him. "Problems? Dinah used the memory of a six year old to generate random patterns of letters that could represent a cartoon character as reasonable grounds to break into a home... alone and with her comms off. There's no part of this situation that _isn't_ a problem, Alfred."

"You're worried about her."

Barbara sighed and rubbed her temples. "Of course, I'm worried. She isn't in the right frame of mind emotionally to be doing the job, at all, much less confronting someone she equates with her mother's murderer. And, to make matters worse, the odds are low that this man is the abductor."

As if on cue, Dinah's voice filtered through the communication system. :: Oracle, Huntress… it's him. I'm going in.::

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Okay, so Dinah had definitely come up with better plans. She knew, as she ran down the street, that Barbara would be angry with her… maybe so angry that she would never forgive her. She figured that she would probably get kicked out over her choice. A family sized hole deep inside of her was screaming at her to just turn around and go back to the tower. All she had to do was turn on her comms and say that it had been an accident.

As she thought about being turned out again, it was all she could do to keep herself from quaking and trembling with fear. But as she thought about what that man was doing to those kids…

She ran faster.

As she got to Capitol Ave, she didn't even need to check addresses to know she was at the right house. The small red car from her vision was parked in a driveway and called to her from a full block away. As she got closer, she saw a license plate that only a six year old mind (or, apparently, the most brilliant one in New Gotham) could possibly think spelled "Sylvester". There was a small blue backpack in the front seat with the latest incarnation of Power Rangers on the front.

Adrenaline fueled the fury and the fear, but she still had the presence of mind to check the backpack. Her instincts said that this was the car and a six year old kid was in the house, but she had to be sure. What if some father and son were in the house, and some poor kid watched her beat up his dad?

The car door was locked, but her telekinesis tended to kick in when she felt threatened, so she had no difficulty popping up the lock from the inside of the car. Hastily, she threw open the door and tore open the backpack, searching for anything with a name.

She almost burst into tears when she found a picture of three stick figures: two large ones and a smaller one. One of the large ones wore pants and the other one a dress. A mom and dad and little kid... a perfect little family, one which Dinah had never been able to draw. Proudly printed at the bottom of the page in big, uneven letters was the name "Will."

In a second, the unbearable despair gave way to fury. No one had the right to take a child away from a happy home.

Reaching up to turn her comm back on, Dinah gritted out between tightly clenched teeth, "Oracle, Huntress… it's him. I'm going in."

:: Dinah, stop RIGHT THERE!:: Barbara yelled. At any other time, her tone would have sent shivers running down the teen's spine. :: Huntress is on her way, and you don't know for certain-::

"Will's backpack is in the car," the blond said, her voice hard and low. "He's in there."

Dinah took long strides towards the door, not caring about a response. Somewhere in that house, a little kid could be getting hurt and she had no illusions about what was happening. The windows in the front wall of the house began to rattle and shake from her overwhelming fury. Before she even reached the front steps, the glass in the front windows shattered inward. She didn't care and gave no effort to rein in her telekinesis.

"What the hell?!" a decidedly masculine voice called from inside.

Dinah heard hurried footsteps come towards the door and waited patiently. For a moment, she felt oddly calm despite the angry tears running down both cheeks. The door swung open, and she was greeted by the man Rusty had seen take his friend.

"Who the…" the man started angrily, his average face contorted in open anger and annoyance. He quickly lost steam, stopped dead in his tracks by something he saw in the teen's eyes.

Dinah had planned what she would say if she ever had the chance to confront the man, imagining herself saving someone in the nick of time with a witty retort to add insult to serious injury. But when she really saw him standing there in front of her, all she could do was open her mouth and scream.

Her telekinesis threw the man backwards, flying some ten feet before hitting a wall. His back and then his head gave a sickening, wet, thwack as it slammed into the hard surface. He slid down the wall onto the floor, his limbs moving sluggishly and unintelligently.

Dinah ran the short distance and was standing over him as he got to his elbows and knees. He gave a mighty push upward, only to have her slam a fist in his face. He fell back to the floor, knocked senseless, and remained there for a few seconds. It was only instinct that caused him to try to rise a second time, conscious thought having ceased long before.

"How dare you?!" Dinah yelled down at him, her voice high and piercing. "He was happy, you bastard! He was happy with a family who loved him and you ruined his life! You took him away! Did you ever think what you were doing?!"

Dinah watched and waited for him to get on his hands and knees before delivering a swift kick to his head. This time his head snapped backwards and into the wall, before he hit the ground. Blood stained the wall where the man's head had slammed into it. He stayed on the floor, unmoving.

Dinah didn't care. She fell to her knees and used all of her weight to plant another punch on the man's face. Caught between her fist and the floor, the man's head didn't move with the force of the blow. So she punched him again, and then again.

"He could have been happy! Don't you understand that? He was finally with a family that loved him and you took him away. It wasn't your right! You hear that?! You had no RIGHT!"

She continued hitting him as hard as she could, pounding the lump of flesh that used to be his face. All she saw was blood and darkness, and she raged against it with every fiber of her being.

Suddenly, she felt a presence behind her and arms wrapped around her, pulling her away.

"Dinah, stop!"

"No!" she cried, flailing unsuccessfully. "He ruined it! Now he'll never be happy!"

"Who will never be happy?" she heard Helena ask.

"He took him from his family!" Dinah insisted, not really hearing what her friend was saying and pissed off that she was holding her back. "He's NOT his father! He should have stayed away!"

:: Huntress, you need to get the both of you out of there!:: Dinah heard distantly through her comm. :: Neighbors have called the police, reporting the sound of a struggle. They'll be there in under two minutes.::

"Can you come before they get here, Oracle? Dinah's gone nuts!"

She used all of her weight to try to surge forward, but Helena went with the momentum and pushed her to the ground. She pushed back with her elbow, but the brunette only grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back to keep her from lashing out again. On the ground with one arm painfully held behind her and Helena's weight keeping her down, Dinah struggled to bring her telekinesis to bear but her energy was draining.

"No!" she cried out. "Stop! Don't take me away!"

Her mother was pulling her into the darkness, and the world was spinning away from her. With every ounce of strength she had left, Dinah gave one last mighty shove both with her muscles and her telekinesis, no longer aware of whom she was fighting.

And then the darkness won.


	12. Chapter 12

I still don't own the characters. Thanks for all of the kind reviews and thanks, as always, to SamIAm 4.

* * *

Seated in front of her computers, Barbara listened to the sounds coming from the communication system with a growing sense of concern and urgency bordering on panic. That noise was not what she had come to expect from a struggle. 

It was a beating.

:: He could have been happy! Don't you understand that? He was finally with a family that loved him and you took him away. It wasn't your right! You hear that?! You had no RIGHT!::

"Huntress, where are you?" she asked, her eyes widening as she listened to Dinah, for lack of a better term, have a nervous breakdown. Really, she needn't have asked. The two signals were right on top of one another.

:: Dinah, stop!::

The rest of the conversation was lost as an alarm went off from one of the computers behind her. A blinking window appeared at the corner of her screen, one of the first programs she had written after making the decision to become Oracle.

It was designed to keep track of the location of police cars wherever they were in the city by noting their location when their occupants used their radio. Through a series of camouflaged antennas, the program was able to triangulate the point of origin of the radio signal. It then calculated the time it would take for the closest police cars to appear on the scene, using statistical probability with variables that included the time of day, streets closed due to construction or other special circumstance, and even which traffic lights would be possible to get through. The program even updated with every single responded call, increasing the data and its accuracy. Similar technology had been under development for ten years in a dozen major cities to triangulate cell phone 911 calls, but so far, none had been successful.

It had taken her a week, including the three nights Helena had spent placing the antennas on rooftops.

Barbara clicked on the window to open it, and cursed as her eyes quickly scanned the screen.

"Huntress, you need to get the both of you out of there! Neighbors have called the police and are reporting the sound of a struggle. They'll be there in less than two minutes."

:: Can you come before they get here, Oracle? Dinah's gone nuts!::

"Negative, Huntress," Barbara said, her brow creasing in concern. "Get her out of there any way you can. If you can get to the alley behind the electronics store a block away, I can pick you up there."

:: No! Stop! Don't take me away!::

Barbara dug her nails into her wheelchair's armrests as she listened to Dinah's anguished cries. Her mind spun into itself, weaving the pieces of her charge's behavior into place and the puzzle suddenly came into focus.

"Someone taking children from loving homes," she said softly in disbelief. "That's the connection. Dinah isn't equating the murderer with Hawke… she's equating the murderer with her mother."

"My word," Alfred said softly, listening from a few feet behind her. He honestly could not picture the sunny teenager beating someone as the sounds coming from the speakers suggested, but at the moment he was more concerned for the woman in front of him.

Barbara whirled her upper body around at the sound, surprising the grandfatherly butler. Barbara was not one to forget anything (apart from keeping the refrigerator and cupboards adequately stocked), and it testified to her concern for her young charge that she had already forgotten the conversation they had only moments before. She immediately relaxed upon seeing who was behind her, and the tears in her eyes confirmed his suspicions.

"Alfred…" the redhead paused, looking up at him. For a moment, she seemed very much like the little girl he had seen Jim Gordon take in. "Dinah told me she fought with Rick because he didn't mind his little brother being taken. She must have felt the same way when Helena and I didn't stand up for her right to stay with us. She wouldn't talk to us anymore because she didn't trust us."

The guilt and weariness in her eyes and voice appalled the butler. He had seen that very same look on Bruce before he had decided to leave New Gotham. While he didn't expect the same action from Barbara, he did not like that she seemed to think the barriers she was facing were insurmountable.

"Miss Barbara," he said softly, "Miss Dinah loves you and Miss Helena very much, and does anything she thinks will please you. I do not think she would put so much effort into gaining your approval if any irreparable harm had been done to your relationship. If I may say, I do believe she has been trying, in her own way, to fix it."

Barbara thought that over silently for several seconds without responding.

Suddenly, the speakers flared to life once more. :: Oracle, she passed out. I'll meet you behind the electronics store.::

Barbara quickly pressed a button on her chair to activate a portable microphone, but Alfred could still hear the guilt and concern in the crisp, "Understood."

She straightened her back and looked straight at him. "I'm going to pick them up. Dinah may need medical attention when we get back. Could you..."

"The med lab will be ready and waiting upon your return," he answered.

"Thank you," she said quietly, wheeling to the elevator.

"It is good that she has you and Miss Helena to care for her during this difficult time," Alfred added as the doors closed.

'A lot of good it's done her so far,' Barbara thought as she waited impatiently for the elevator to take her to the garage.

* * *

Kneeling on the floor of the kidnapper's home, Helena felt Dinah go limp. Slowly, she let go of the arm she was holding behind the girl's back and gently turned over the closest thing she had to a sister. Even unconscious, the teen still looked troubled, as if her demons had followed her into her sleep. 

'They probably did,' Helena thought knowingly. If her mother's murder had taught her anything, it was that outer demons usually found a way in.

Even from where she was, Helena could tell the perp was still alive to pay for what he had done. But as she looked over at the kidnapper, she realized just how close Dinah had come to beating him to death. The sleaze was unconscious and curled into a ball, bleeding from his face and the back of his head.

Barbara had definitely been right about Dinah not being ready for sweeps. 'Shows how much I know.'

"It'll be okay, kid," she said softly, taking the blond into her arms. She stood up straight and squared her shoulders, once again the Huntress. "Oracle, she passed out. I'll meet you behind the electronics store."

:: Understood,:: came the oddly distanced reply.

Helena paused for a moment. Her enhanced hearing was picking up rapid breathing coming from the other room, but the cops would be there any second. She hesitated for another few seconds, and then went out the back door to follow the alleys to the electronics store.

"Geez, kid, how much do you weigh?"

The hummer was already waiting behind the store when Helena got there.

"It certainly took you long enough," Barbara said from behind the wheel, smirking. "Losing your touch?"

Helena scowled, gently placing Dinah in the backseat and then climbing in after. "Next time you get to carry her and I'll listen to CDs all nice and warm in the car."

The redhead rolled her eyes, but turned off the radio as she pulled out into traffic. "I've been listening to the _police scanner_. They found the boy in one of the back rooms, unharmed but scared at all of the yelling. They assumed that the kidnapper was the boy's father until he started crying for his real one."

Helena swallowed, needing to ask but almost afraid to. "Is he okay?"

"The kidnapper told him that he would take him to see his mom, who was sick. They stopped off for ice cream on the way and hadn't finished it, yet, when Dinah came charging in. The little boy still didn't know anything was wrong."

Helena breathed a deep sigh of relief and turned her attention back to Dinah.

"What happened in there?" she heard Barbara ask.

"When I got there, Dinah had already beat the guy to a bloody pulp and was still hitting him," she answered, not looking up. "There was blood everywhere, but I don't think it was her's."

Barbara nodded and was quiet for several moments. Finally, she said softly, "We were wrong, you know."

She was being all mysterious and Oracley, but for once Helena knew exactly what she was talking about. Shaking her head, she said, "It wasn't Hawke she was mad at, was it?"

"No… she thought Carolyn was taking her away. She really didn't want to go with her," Barbara said guiltily, shaking her head at herself ruefully. "She was trying to tell us the whole time and I didn't listen."

"You did the best that you could," Helena insisted, the resigned tone in her friend's voice making her wary. "It's not like she was exactly talking to us the past few weeks."

"She said that she didn't want to go. That we were the ones who wanted her to go," she said through tearing eyes, banging the steering wheel with one of her fists to accent each point. "She _told_ me. I just wasn't listening. I felt so sure that she was hiding her pain that I didn't see how much she was trying to show me."

Helena had heard enough. She stood up, not caring that the car was still in motion.

"Helena! Sit down."

The brunette ignored her and moved to the passenger seat and put on her seat belt. "Barbara. Listen to me. This is not your fault."

"Yes, it is," Barbara insisted angrily.

It weirded Helena out to see her mentor so upset, but she knew her well enough to know that she was really just upset with herself.

"Don't you see?" the redhead continued, her voice catching. "It makes perfect sense. Her mother leaves her, the Redmonds mistreat her, and then _we_, the people she saw as her last chance for a family and happiness, kick her out to force her to go with her mother. And to her, Carolyn wasn't her mother... just a stranger who was trying to take her life away. At least, the life she wanted for herself."

"Oh, I get it," Helena said, raising an eyebrow and crossing her arms in front of her. "You think that because you're the Oracle, you should know every thought and feeling that Dinah has... even though she's the telepath in the family." She snorted and rolled her eyes. "And people say I'm conceited."

Barbara managed a small laugh and raised an eyebrow, but Helena could still see tears in her eyes. "I see what you're trying to do."

"See, there you go again. You're assuming that you know everything."

"Not everything," Barbara said mock indignantly. "Just you."

Helena crinkled her nose. "I'm not _that_ easy to read."

"Ah, yes," the redhead said, finally in full teasing mode. "You're an enigma behind the leather."

"Hey," the brunette said, shrugging, "someone's gotta keep it real around here."

"And _you're_ the humble one?"

"Humble? Please. But this whole thinking you know everything deal just doesn't suit you."

Barbara shook her head, but let it go as she parked the Hummer. Alfred was already waiting for them with a stretcher.

As Barbara moved her chair to the rear of the car to use the lift, Alfred couldn't help noticing how much more relaxed she appeared than when she had left and he quickly surmised Helena was to thank for that. However, there was still an air of guilt and frustration that would probably take a little longer to dissipate. As he brought the stretcher to the side of the hummer, she composed herself and prepared to take charge of Dinah's care, but not before he caught the momentary forlorn expression.

As Helena got out of the front seat of the hummer and opened the back door, Alfred noted the concern and guilt on her features just underneath the flippant, devil-may-care attitude. She often responded to stressful situations the same way, but this time the kind butler knew the mask was in place for Barbara's sake instead of her own.

He hoped Dinah was all right… for all of their sakes. And, as he approached the door and got his first look at the young woman unconscious in the back seat, his conscience smote him for not having seen her problems, either.

But as he looked more closely, he noticed that Dinah didn't seem to be unconscious so much as in the throes of a terrible nightmare. She was curled into a tight ball and crying in her sleep.

"What's going on?" Helena asked worriedly, crouching down next to her but keeping her distance.

Alfred moved out of the way as Barbara maneuvered her chair in the tight space of the hummer to get a closer look.

"I don't know…" she said, her brow furrowed in concern. She tentatively reached out and rubbed the blonde's arm softly. "Dinah?"

The teenager only continued crying softly in her sleep, making the pit of worry deep in Alfred's stomach turn itself in knots.

Barbara looked up at him concernedly, and then said louder, "Dinah. Wake up, honey. Everything's going to be all right." Continuing to speak in a soothing tone, she began to run her fingers through the blonde's hair.

Suddenly, everything around Barbara went dark and all of her body seemed as numb as her legs. She panicked for a few seconds before she realized that she was standing. 'But, how…'

All at once, Barbara remembered the last time she had stood without the help of the machine she was working on in her spare time. 'I'm in Dinah's mind,' she realized. 'But where is she? Why is everything so dark?' Shaking her head in confusion, she suddenly spotted Dinah and Helena ahead of her in the dim light.

She made her way to the familiar figures, realizing as she did so that they were training and, from Helena's annoyed tones, Dinah wasn't doing very well. It was hard to see in the darkness, but it looked to Barbara as if the blonde was moving sluggishly and her guard was much too low. Automatically, she tried to point this out to Dinah, but found that she had no voice in this strange place. So she came as close as she dared and watched silently from the shadows.

She cringed when Helena hit Dinah harder than was necessary, knocking the blonde to the floor. The brunette didn't show her the mistakes she was making, only knocked her to the ground a second time. Anger rose in Barbara's chest and she surged forward to stand up for her younger charge, but was cut off by Carolyn's sudden appearance from out of nowhere.

Startled, she jumped backwards in surprise and noted her two charges make the same movement. It was disturbing to see someone whom she knew was dead, but it seemed right that Carolyn should live on in Dinah's mind and heart. Remembering the friction between Carolyn and Helena, Barbara grinned and waited for her old friend to put the brunette in her place and defend Dinah. She wasn't able to talk in this strange place, but surely Carolyn would say everything that Barbara wished she could.

And yet… something about her friend's bearing seemed all wrong.

Barbara was horrified to hear Carolyn say, "You're not with me where you belong. Being a superhero isn't the life I wanted for you. You wouldn't be as good at it as I was."

"How do you know when you won't let me try?" Dinah demanded, trembling despite her defiant tone.

"I'm your mother and I know what's best for you," Carolyn said, roughly taking her daughter by the arm. "And you're coming with me."

The older blonde started to drag the teenager toward a huge black hole in the center of the training room that Barbara hadn't noticed before. Instinctively, she realized Black Canary was taking her daughter to be with her… in death.

"Wait!" Dinah protested, struggling. "Stop!"

Again Barbara was overcome by the need to do something, but she was stopped in her tracks by a familiar hum coming from behind her. Fearful of the sound for a reason she couldn't explain, Barbara slowly turned to see another version of herself wheel through the door. Shocked, she realized that the familiar, loathed sound was the noise of her electric chair.

As she got a better look, she noticed that the other Barbara seemed to look a little different even though she was dressed familiarly in her favorite blue blouse and light slacks. She seemed… prettier, almost. Little imperfections that the redhead noticed about herself weren't present in this other version of herself, and she seemed to sit a little taller in her chair.

Shadow Barbara wheeled past her, and despite all of the strange things going on, she couldn't help wondering, 'Oh, yuck… does that shirt really look like that on me? Why didn't anyone tell me?'

Dinah turned toward the redhead in the wheelchair and called hopefully, "Barbara, help me! I don't have to go with her, do I?"

Barbara's heart broke and chilled painfully in her chest as she heard this other version of herself say almost mechanically, "I told you what would happen if you stopped training. And she is your mother. You need to go with her."

"Why?" Dinah asked, now crying freely. "So she can ditch me again?"

"I can't believe you," Helena said accusingly, her arms crossed and shaking her head in disgust. "I would give anything to get to see my mom one last time, and you don't even want to go with her. You're as cold and heartless as my father."

"Don't make me go!" Dinah pleaded desperately, looking frantically back and forth between the darkness and the Barbara and Helena from her dream. "Please, help me! I want to stay with you."

"You're just upset," Shadow Barbara said dismissively, waving the teenager away with her hand. "You'll come around. Believe me, this is the best thing for all of us. You would have never fit in here."

Barbara just stood there, her mouth dropped open in shock, appalled at what her dream counter-part had just said. 'Is this what Dinah thinks we would say, or is it only what she's afraid we'd say?'

Dinah froze at the words and then quit fighting. As her mother pulled her towards the darkness, she muttered to the floor, "Please… I can do better… I'll train harder. I'll get better grades. Please…"

Tears coming down her own cheeks, Barbara surged forward and pushed Carolyn away. At her movement, Helena and the other version of herself faded away into nothingness and the darkness seemed to close inward.

At the release of the pressure on her arm, Dinah sank down onto the floor, pulled her knees up to her chest, and sobbed.

Barbara got onto her knees to envelop the blonde in an embrace, struggling to find her voice.

Dinah continued to weep for several minutes, seemingly unaware of her presence.

Growing increasingly frustrated and distressed at her inability to reach her, Barbara finally managed to say, "It's okay. I'm here. No one is going to take you away."

At her words, Dinah squinted into the darkness. "Barbara?"

"I'm right here," the redhead said, overjoyed that the teen had finally responded. "It's going to be okay."

The darkness began to pull away from the pair and Dinah was finally able to see and feel her mentor hugging her tightly. She stared at her for a moment in disbelief, before leaning into the embrace and sobbing into her shoulder, "Please don't let her take me with her."

"I won't, sweetheart," Barbara assured her. She gave her a teary smile and added, "Helena, Alfred, and I would all miss you too much."

Out of the corner of her eye, Barbara saw movement. Carolyn had moved to stand behind Dinah's back, just in Barbara's line of sight. The redhead was already incredibly angry with her old friend and quickly prepared to defend her charge, but Carolyn only smiled at her… and then just melted away.


	13. Chapter 13

As always, thanks to SamIAm4. And thanks a whole lot to Christina Anton, Lucy76, redladyreba, rain1657, and Anna for reviewing. I'm really glad you've all liked it so far, and I hope you all like this one.

Oh, yeah... I don't own the characters.

* * *

In the darkness of the garage, Helena knelt beside Dinah as Barbara tried to coax the teen back into the real world. The blonde was still crying softly in her sleep, so Barbara continued speaking in a soothing tone, running her fingers through the blonde's hair. Helena tried to give her mentor the space she needed, but she found herself crowding the pair again and again as she tried to get a better look at what was happening.

She told herself that it was only because the Hummer was so cramped.

She felt Alfred's presence behind her, almost too close for comfort. He was probably just as wor-

He probably didn't have enough space in the Hummer, either.

'Barbara will pull Dinah out of it,' Helena reminded herself. 'It's gonna be okay.'

The teen looked so small, curled into a ball on the back seat. It suddenly seemed ridiculously absurd that she was training to be a superhero. 'New rule,' Helena thought to herself. 'Anyone who still uses the word "superhero" is too young to join.'

Abruptly, Barbara froze, her hand still resting on Dinah's head. The sudden change in her mentor's bearing cut right through the brunette's musings.

"Barbara," Helena asked tentatively, reaching for the redhead's arm.

A gentle hand on her shoulder stopped her.

Her hand paused, and she turned to see Alfred looking down at her.

"It's all right, Miss Helena," he said gently, giving her shoulder a small squeeze. "Miss Dinah may not be aware of what is going on around her, but I believe she has instinctively called Miss Barbara for help. We must not interfere as they fight through this together."

"But, Dinah's mind…" Helena trailed off worriedly, and looked back at the pair. Dinah was still crying exactly the same as she had been earlier, and tears were beginning to form in Barbara's eyes. "Last time Dinah pulled us into someone's mind, Ketterly almost killed all of us."

"Miss Barbara would be quite upset if she knew you doubted her ability to take care of herself," Alfred commented wryly, lifting an eyebrow.

Helena scowled and looked back at him. Immediately, her annoyance was replaced with concern. "You're worried, too."

"Watching loved ones fight their battles without the ability to help never becomes easy, Miss Helena," he said softly, looking at Barbara instead of at her. "Especially a fight like this."

For several long minutes, the grandfatherly butler and the vigilante watched as Barbara and Dinah fought to undo the more damaging of the Black Canary's legacies.

After a few minutes, Helena noticed that something was happening to both Dinah and Barbara. Dinah's quiet crying had increased to heart-wrenching sobs, and slow tears were coming down Barbara's cheeks. Suddenly, the redhead stiffened measurably in her chair, and her face contorted in open anger.

"Alfred," Helena said, drawing out the word with a hint of panic in her voice.

"This is not necessarily a bad sign," Alfred said quickly, tightening his grip on the brunette's shoulder almost imperceptibly.

"Well, it sure as hell isn't a good one!" Helena said angrily. Still, Alfred always knew what was best, so she didn't move to touch either of them.

But that didn't mean she had to like it.

As the minutes stretched on, the anger written on Barbara's face only intensified, occasionally flashing to other looks that Helena couldn't identify.

"I wish I knew what was going on in there!" she finally growled in frustration, hitting her knee with her fist.

"As do I, Miss Helena," Alfred commented softly. "As do I."

And that admission scared Helena more than anything else.

Finally, Barbara's face softened.

"Do you see that, Alfred?" Helena asked quickly, pointing and fighting down the urge to jump for joy. Sure, she was happy, but there was no reason to be undiginified about it.

Alfred nodded, smiling in relief and hope.

"Yes," he said confidently, "it seems that the worst is over."

"Alfred!" Helena admonished, frowning at him. "Don't _ever_ say that the worst is over. It's like saying that things can't get any worse. And things _always_ get worse after someone says that."

"I apologize, Miss Helena," Alfred said, trying not to smile. "I shall be more careful in the future."

Helena nodded and turned back to Barbara and Dinah, hoping that the jinx gods hadn't heard him.

After another minute or so, Dinah's sobs began to grow more and more quiet, until she stopped crying altogether.

Suddenly, Barbara sat back in her chair and took a deep breath, finally pulling her hand away from Dinah.

"Barbara?" Helena asked tentatively.

The redhead looked around herself, and shook her head as if to clear it.

"Barbara?" Helena asked more insistently, trying to keep the worry from her voice.

Barbara caught it anyway. "I'm fine," she said quickly, looking from Alfred to Helena. "Dinah was having a nightmare… she pulled me into her mind."

"What happened?" Helena asked, her voice even, but her face worried.

"It's okay," Barbara assured her. She paused for a moment, and considered how much to tell her. Finally, she decided that the brunette needed to know in order to understand how to help Dinah. She took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh.

"Dinah dreamed that her mother came back and was trying to take her away," she explained, including both Helena and Alfred in her gaze. "Helena and I were both in the dream, refusing to protect her."

The look of shame on Helena's face made Barbara pause.

She started to tell her protégé that it had just been a dream… but it hadn't been, had it? She started to tell her that she couldn't have known… but Dinah had tried to tell them both, hadn't she? Barbara started to tell her that they had done the right thing when they insisted that Dinah give her mother a chance… but that was what had caused the most damage, wasn't it?

For several long moments, she tried to think of _something_ to ease Helena's guilt, but nothing came. Finally, she just looked away, mired in the guilt that she had failed both of her charges.

"Miss Barbara, Miss Helena," Alfred said sternly, startling Barbara. "How can the two of you expect to help Miss Dinah past this difficult time when neither of you are past it? She needs both of you now."

As if in response to his words, the teen started stirring. Barbara shoved away her guilt and turned her upper body towards the blonde.

Dinah woke up slowly with a peace that she couldn't quite define. But when she opened her eyes to the familiar darkness, she got confused and quickly panicked.

"Shhh… it's okay, Dinah. I'm right here."

"Barbara?" she asked, realizing that her guardian was sitting next to her, running her fingers through her hair. She felt like a little kid, but it made her feel comforted… safe. Helena was there, too, crouching down next to her a little bit behind Barbara. And she could see Alfred's kind face next to the window. Wait… the _window_?

"Um… are we in the Hummer?"

Before anyone answered her, the events of the day came rushing back at her. She stiffened abruptly, Barbara actions suddenly seeming a betrayal. Was she softening her up before she kicked her out?

But as Dinah became more aware of her surroundings, she couldn't help wondering if she would be kicked out at all. It was dangerous to hope and she wouldn't let herself… but her guardian was smiling so gently, and even Helena looked relieved. Alfred was standing beside the door, and _he'd_ never been mad at her before.

But, then, she'd never gone off comms before.

And yet, there was… an expectation, almost… that Barbara would understand. Dinah didn't know why she felt that the redhead would see when she hadn't for weeks, but she did. Realizing that, she quickly steeled herself against such thoughts; they would only make her hurt worse later.

Barbara saw the teen, still lying on the back seat, stiffen and look up at her almost angrily. Even though the abrupt change startled her, she was careful not to change her body language. The last thing Dinah needed was for her to pull away at the first sign of a conflict.

'She doesn't remember the dream,' she realized. 'Or she thinks it wasn't real.'

Dinah looked around herself and then back at Barbara. The look of anger eased a little into suspicion and confusion.

Barbara couldn't blame her for either one and saddened once again as she thought of how she had failed her charge. Dealing with the suspicion would take time, so she decided to address the confusion. "Dinah, do you remember what happened today?"

The blonde looked stricken and quickly diverted her gaze. She was quiet for several long moments, and then said in a very small voice, "I went to the kidnapper's house."

Suddenly she jerked upwards stiffly and sat up straight. She looked Barbara in the eye, her expression momentarily clear and asked, "The kid… Will… was he there? Is he okay?"

Pride swelled within her as Barbara watched Dinah's concern for the little boy outweigh all of her other worries. She really did have the heart.

"He's fine," she was quick to assure the teen, reaching out to take her hand.

Her heart broke when Dinah pulled her hand away and scooted a bit farther away on the seat.

Barbara saw Helena frown and then smile broadly to cover it up. "You saved the day, kid. Will didn't even know anything was wrong when you came barging in."

Dinah gave a relieved smile, but it quickly faded and she looked away again.

"You did everything exactly right," Barbara said, smiling. "Well, aside from going off comms, of course, but we can talk about that later. You followed your leads as quickly as possible, double checked your facts by finding Will's backpack in the car, and then apprehended the culprit."

Barbara made sure she had eye contract before saying gently, "You saved a life today, Dinah. Maybe even more than one."

The blonde blushed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a reluctant, proud smile slowly creeping onto her face. "I guess so," she finally said softly, ducking her head.

"We'll celebrate later," Barbara said, returning the smile, "but right now you're going straight to the med lab so I can make sure you're all right."

"Yeah, okay," the teen acquiesced quietly.

Helena and Dinah got out first to get out of the way of the lift and waited patiently for it to lower their friend to the ground. As she came down, Barbara searched Dinah's face for any hint of her thoughts, but the teen's shield was up in full force. She was reacting passively, almost as if she expected any action to bring the world down around her.

It was the exact opposite of Helena's defense reaction. When things began to come apart, Helena had a tendency to become almost reckless, daring the world to end so at least she wouldn't be in pain for long. Dinah, on the other hand, was becoming increasingly subdued, pulling into her shell in a vain effort to keep from hurting when the pieces came crashing down.

As they all made their way to the med lab, Alfred trailing behind with the unnecessary stretcher, Barbara wracked her brain to come up with some way to bring the blonde out. She doubted she would have the luxury of getting pulled inside her head a second time.

The elevator ride was made in uncomfortable silence, with Dinah becoming more and more visibly nervous as it neared the top.

As the doors opened, Barbara asked nonchalantly, "Helena, would you mind monitoring the Delphi?"

Helena's mouth dropped open at the invitation to watch the computers unsupervised, but when her gaze slid to Dinah, a look of realization flickered across her face. "Sure. I'll come get you if anything happens."

Barbara nodded and focused her attention back on Dinah as the brunette walked away.

"I will begin making dinner if you don't need me, Miss Barbara," Alfred said, having probably realized before even the redhead did, what her course of action must be.

"Thank you, Alfred," she said, smiling at him gratefully.

"You are quite welcome," he said, stopping to put a reassuring hand on Dinah's shoulder before walking away.

The blonde looked panic stricken as everyone left, as if she thought she had been thrown to the wolves.

"Let's make sure you're all right and then we'll have dinner," Barbara said, gesturing toward the medlab.

Dinah nodded, not quite making eye contact with her and walked ahead.

Barbara wheeled behind her, desperately trying to think of a way to break the tension. Finally, as they both entered the room, she asked, "Does anything hurt?"

Dinah shook her head.

Barbara gestured towards a chair and wheeled to one of the cupboards. She found a cloth and went to the sink to wet it. The sound of the running water was welcome and soothing, but did little to release her tension. Somehow, she needed to get Dinah to talk.

"I need to clean your hands to make sure your knuckles are all right," she explained, shutting off the faucet and wheeling towards the teenager. "Do they hurt you at all?"

Dinah shrugged, still looking away.

Growing frustrated, Barbara took a moment to calm herself before she took one of Dinah's hands and began to gently clear away the blood.

"Dinah, have you been having nightmares?" she finally asked.

The blonde's gaze jerked towards her in panic, and then went away just as quickly. She shrugged noncommittally.

Barbara grimaced in sympathy as she finished cleaning the blood from Dinah's left hand. Helena had been right- the blood was not hers, but the knuckles were discolored and already beginning to swell. It was a wonder that the teen hadn't minded them being cleaned.

"Can you make a fist?" she asked, releasing the hand.

Dinah nodded and showed her, finally making eye contact.

"Good," Barbara encouraged. "It doesn't look broken, but you'll need to ice it before the swelling gets much worse. Now give me the other one."

Dinah hesitated. Her right hand was hurting worse than the other. She didn't figure that Barbara would hurt her… but what if she got mad that she'd hurt her hand? It wasn't like Helena ever broke her fist on the bad guys' heads.

Well, okay, so it had happened once, but only because some stupid guy decided to head butt her and she didn't block correctly. And, the teen remembered in growing panic, Barbara _had_ been upset.

"Dinah?" she heard Barbara ask gently. "I'm not going to hurt you. I need to see your hand."

For a reason that she didn't quite understand, that made Dinah want to cry. She fought down the urge, already upset that she had gotten hurt, and afraid to allow herself to be vulnerable.

She looked up and saw Barbara's hands out, ready to hold her own. Taking a deep breath, she gave her guardian her injured hand.

Barbara took her hand gently in one of her own and used the other to run a clean section of the cloth over her knuckles. Despite her resolve, Dinah jumped when the cloth touched one of the bones between her knuckles and her wrist.

Making a note of the injured area and carefully avoiding it, Barbara decided that it was time to get Dinah to talk and asked softly, "Where does it hurt, sweetheart?"

The gentle tone brought back the tears but the teen fought them again. 'This is so stupid!' she admonished herself harshly. 'Why does it make me want to cry?' She didn't want to show Barbara the pain, but she desperately didn't want to be hurt again. So, after a moment's consideration, she pointed to the sore place on her hand and said, "I think it's broken."

Barbara nodded and finished with the cloth, still holding the broken hand in her own. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, careful not to sound accusing or angry as she looked into the watery blue eyes.

Instead of answering, the blonde just stared at the floor in defeat.

"Dinah, why won't you talk to me?"

The teen didn't move, but inside she was a swirl of emotions. 'Talking never helps!' she screamed inside of her head.

Part of her just wanted to give up and leave before they kicked her out. Part of her desperately wanted to stay. She was terrified to answer her guardian's question, but equally fearful that her refusal would make the redhead angry. Everything was spinning again… but there was Barbara, still gently cradling her injured hand.

A memory stirred within her. The shadows of a nightmare ended slowly came into the light, but instead of dispelling the shadows, the light gave them form and life. It made the shadows real.

"Barbara…" Dinah said softly, her voice catching. The tears finally overflowed as she struggled to find the courage to ask what she suddenly dared to hope. "Were you there?"

Barbara smiled gently and nodded, her own eyes filling.

"You saw," Dinah said fearfully. Her eyes grew wide in panic, and her tears gained sudden urgency.

"It's all right," Barbara assured her quickly. "Dinah, you can't control what was in your nightmare. And, frankly, you have every right to feel angry, upset, hurt, abandoned, or anything else because of our actions."

The teen turned away, but Barbara continued. "Helena and I forced you to give your mother a chance after she had already hurt you, and then we refused to listen when you tried to tell us what was wrong."

The redhead started to reach forward when she realized she was still holding Dinah's injured hand in both of her own. She shifted the teen's hand so she could hold it with one of her own, and then used her other hand to gently touch the blonde's chin, moving it until she was looking into Dinah's wet blue eyes.

"I am so sorry," Barbara said seriously, not allowing her charge to break eye contact. "We all love you, Dinah, and we like having you here, but we thought that if we insisted that you stay, we'd be standing between a mother and her daughter."

"But I told you," Dinah cried in frustration, more out of her desperate need to not believe her mentor's words than the fact that they were going to let Canary take her.

"I know, sweetheart," Barbara said, running her hand through the teen's hair. "I should have listened. There's no excuse for what I did, but I really did think I was doing the right thing. No one should be forced to choose between their family and their dream."

"She wasn't my family," Dinah said softly, looking at her shoes. "When you chose for me, you chose the nightmare."

Barbara stopped mid motion, and pulled her hand away from the blonde to cup the injured hand in both of her own.

Dinah was immediately furious with herself for having said anything. Her gaze flickered upward just long enough to see the obvious pain in her guardian's eyes before looking away again. She expected to be yelled at. She expected Barbara to give up and turn away. She expected to be kicked out or maybe even hit. She felt her shoulders hunch as she automatically tried to make herself very small.

It caught her by complete surprise when Barbara said in a soft voice full of guilt and pain, "Dinah, why did you start sobbing when you felt Carolyn stop pulling you away?"

The teen's gaze jerked up towards her mentor once more, and then quickly went back to the floor in shame. She knew what Barbara thought, but to tell her the real reason would be to open up completely and make herself vulnerable.

"You were crying because Carolyn was taking you away," the redhead continued, her green eyes sad and full of pain. "But when I made her leave you alone… when you were finally able to stay… you slid to the floor and just sobbed as if I'd made things worse."

Dinah turned away and refused to answer, still deathly afraid of letting herself be open to being hurt again. Tears streamed down her cheeks at the sheer terror of it. But, then, Gabby's words came back to her.

"_Maybe the way you've been acting has them afraid that you don't trust them enough to talk to them. It might make them think that you don't think of them as family anymore."_

Dinah was terrified, frustrated, angry, and sad to the point of despair, but she would absolutely not let her guardian think that she didn't think of her as family. She knew what that felt like… she'd _been_ feeling it for the past several weeks. The pain was too raw for her to bear the thought of allowing someone else to go through that… especially someone whom she _did_ consider family. Swallowing past the lump in her throat, the teen took a few moments to muster up the courage to look the redhead in the eye while she answered, "I thought I was alone."

Barbara's heart broke at the teary admission, and she pulled the blonde into a hug, careful of her injured hands.

"Oh, honey, you're not. Helena, Alfred, and I are all here for you. I'm so sorry we made you feel that way."

Dinah leaned into Barbara's shoulder, sobbing in relief, and felt the arms around her tighten just a little. Each shed tear seemed to take with it just a little of her pain, and left her raging heart a little more relieved of the burden it had carried for so long.

There was so much relief. She was relieved that Barbara finally understood. She was relieved that her guardian had seen everything and hadn't condemned her for her anger or fear or sadness. She was relieved that Helena and Barbara had cared about her, even when she wasn't training or helping with the mission. And she was relieved that they'd all finally caught the killer, and a kid was back with a family who loved him.

"It's okay," Barbara said softly, running her hand in gentle circles on the girl's back. "Just let it all out. I'll always be here, and so will Helena and Alfred, okay? You can talk to us about anything. You're part of our family."

And, for the first time since her mother had tried to take her away, Dinah knew it was true.


	14. Chapter 14

Thanks to SamIAm4 for all of the help. And thanks to redladyreba, rain1657, and Lucy76 for reviewing.

I STILL don't own the characters.

* * *

Alfred moved about the kitchen, doing all the necessary tasks for dinner (or, more precisely, dessert) without any conscious thought. It was not a lack of care which caused his limbs to move with intuitive precision, only the fact that he had been doing the same task for so many years that it didn't require any thought.

When he needed the measuring cups, he knew without thinking to find them in the dishwasher rather than the drawer. Barbara often used them for her experiments and still thought he hadn't noticed. Armed with the necessary tools, he found the flour and sugar in their proper places and went on to the next step.

Alfred enjoyed making dinner. He rather suspected that many people considered it mundane and monotonous, but that was precisely the quality that he enjoyed. One made dinner every night, much like one had for all nights previous, and most likely would the next. The simple tasks in preparing food provided a much needed stability to his routine.

He finished with the measuring cups and placed them in the sink. Then he walked to the refrigerator for the milk, knowing to find the milk next to the peanut butter on the middle shelf (even though the peanut butter belonged in the cupboard and the milk in the refrigerator door), because Helena grabbed them both when she made herself a snack and put them both back in the wrong place.

Again and again the people he cared about went out into the night, risking their very souls in an effort to protect the innocent and helpless. The night had swallowed Bruce whole, and Alfred's greatest fear was that the same fate would claim the three women he cared for.

Finishing with the milk, Alfred put it away in its proper place. He opened the drawer that contained the common cutlery to find the mixing spoons. Dinah often put the dishes away and hadn't quite grasped that the two spoons were of different sizes. And he had been so touched that she tried to help that he had not had the heart to tell her.

He had almost lost her, waiting for Barbara and Helena to realize what was wrong. He'd had his own suspicions on the matter, of course… but, similar to Barbara and Helena, he had assumed Dinah was grieving for her mother. Now that the more important security and abandonment issues were no longer crippling the young woman, she could begin to mourn her mother's passing.

But, it was not his place to voice what were only suspicions on such important feelings. Things such as those were best left to the participants to work out, for they had to understand each other's needs before they could move on. But it had almost been too late.

He had almost lost Dinah. And he could lose any of them at any moment.

'But, by God, they won't go hungry!' he thought to himself, stirring the mix vigorously.

Alfred chided himself for the foolish thinking even as he acknowledged its necessity. After all, one had to focus on the things one could control to avoid dwelling on the things one could not.

Barbara reacted the same way, as had Bruce before her. As Helena was beginning to when she trained Dinah. It was not as if any of them did not trust their protégés, it was merely an act of self-preservation.

Yet it was still foolish.

He stirred faster.

Suddenly his sensitive ears, long attuned to listening for similar domestic sounds, caught the traces of heavy breathing associated with crying. He smiled softly; Barbara was finally making progress with Dinah.

Alfred placed his mix in the appropriate dish and put it in the oven. Then he dialed for pizza to be delivered to the small apartment that lay below the base of operations. After putting the phone down, he straightened his tie and took a moment to compose himself.

It was time for him to get Helena to open up.

He found the brunette sitting in front of the Delphi, several feet away from the nearest keyboard. She had her head placed in her palm, with an elbow resting on her knee. She was staring out the window rather more despondently than he had anticipated.

"Has there been any new information on the case?" he asked.

"Huh?" Helena asked, straightening to look at him. She blinked several times as she remembered Barbara's supposed assignment. "Oh. No, nothing new."

As her attention went back to the open window, Alfred said, "Miss Dinah will be all right, Miss Helena."

When the brunette looked back at him, her eyes startled him in their similarity to her father's. She had always had Bruce's eyes, except that they usually danced with a vivacity all her own. They were wonderfully expressive eyes, shining when she laughed, drooping when she tired, and narrowing when she was angered. Now they flashed with pain, barely disguised by a thin layer of pride which would not let them tear.

That alone gave him hope. There was frustration and self-recrimination in those eyes, but not resignation.

"Yeah," Helena agreed, her jaw tightening. "No thanks to me."

"You did what you thought was best," Alfred insisted gently.

Helena shook her head slowly, smiling sadly. "I knew it was wrong, Alfred. I _knew_ it." She paused and looked away. "Hell! I even told Barbara at the time that it was wrong to make Dinah go with Canary. Why didn't I fu-" She abruptly stopped herself, looking at Alfred a little sheepishly.

The kindly butler smiled inwardly. Why did they all seem to think he had never heard those words before?

Helena's embarrassment was quickly replaced by sadness and anger, and she looked down, shaking her head. "Why didn't I _do_ anything about it?"

"What would you have done?" Alfred asked, raising his eyebrows. "The situation was not as straightforward as it appeared then, or as it appears now."

The brunette looked at him blankly.

"I don't think you would have had the heart to deny a young woman the chance to get to know her mother. Not when you would go to such great pains to learn something new about your own."

For a moment, Helena just stared at him. It was true that she had spent months pouring through every piece of information she could find on Catwoman after her mother had died. She had suddenly felt the desperate need to learn about this other side of her… to be close to her in a way she never had when her mother had been alive. But she'd been careful. She'd covered all of her tracks. How could Alfred know?

She rolled her eyes at herself. Of course, Alfred knew. He was probably the only person who knew more than Barbara. But as she let it go, she suddenly realized that he had just compared _her_ _mother_ to the Black Canary.

"My mom didn't choose to leave me, Alfred," she said icily, stiffening. "She gave up everything to be with me. It's not the same thing."

"No, Miss Helena, it is not," he said placatingly. "But how were you to know that at the time?"

"I knew instinctively," Helena insisted. "That's all I run on most of the time."

Alfred seemed ready to protest so she continued. "Look, I don't have Barbara's memory and I don't have Dinah's powers to get into people's mind. All I have are instincts… and I should have trusted them."

"Helena," came a voice from behind her.

The brunette turned to see Dinah standing on the other side of the computers. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. For a split second she was filled with concern for her almost-sister, and then she was just pissed at her.

"How long have you been standing there?" she demanded, standing up and crossing her arms in front of her. "Were you going to keep standing there, eavesdropping while I spilled my guts to Alfred?"

Dinah rolled her eyes. "Like I needed to. Ever since I woke up in the hummer, everyone's guilt has been screaming at me. It's almost as annoying as when you guys thought that I was sad about The Canary."

"Well, good to know you're listening in on my thoughts, too," Helena said sarcastically.

"And that they annoy me," the teen reminded her, grinning. "Don't forget that. Geez, for somebody so closed off, there sure is a lot going on in there."

"Yeah, like you're one to talk," Helena said, rolling her eyes. "You've had about as much to say as one of the Darrells."

The teen looked confused.

Helena rolled her eyes again and sighed heavily. "One of Larry's brothers."

"Oh!" Dinah said, her eyes lighting up as she finally got it.

"Took you long enough."

"It was an old reference," Dinah said defensively, frowning.

"Kids these days!" Helena said, throwing up her hands. "Don't you ever watch Nick at Nite?"

Helena could almost see the thought process the teen went through as she started to retort and then realized the comparison was an insult.

"Oh, yuck! You're comparing me to them?" she asked in disbelief. "Wait, which one?"

"Why does it matter which one?" Helena asked, frowning. "Neither of them talked."

"Yeah," Dinah agreed, "but one was way greasier than the other."

"They were all greasy," Helena said, crinkling her nose.

"True," Dinah said nodding.

"She is changing the subject, Miss Helena," Alfred said, stepping out to give them privacy.

'Duh, Helena,' the brunette thought to herself, watching Alfred leave. 'It's the exact same thing you do!'

"Why won't you talk to me?" she asked out loud. "You haven't said anything for weeks."

"I know," Dinah said quietly, fighting the urge to look away. "But not for the reason that you think."

"Why?" Helena asked curiously.

"I thought you'd be mad at me," the blonde admitted.

"Mad at you?" Helena repeated, uncrossing her arms in surprise. "Why would I be mad?"

"Because," Dinah paused as the lump in her throat suddenly grew too large for her to say more. She closed her eyes for a few quick moments and took a deep, steadying breath. "Because I know you try so hard to remember your mom and you go to her grave to tell her things and stuff…" She stopped and looked away in embarrassment as the tears began to flow once again.

"And you didn't want to get to know your mom," the brunette finished.

First Alfred, and then Dinah, had thought that she compared her mother to the Black Canary. Her jaw set angrily as she realized she was going to have to clear that up. She started to retort and then realized that biting the poor kid's head off would probably not be too helpful. She searched for a gentler approach for several seconds before sighing in frustration at herself. She just wasn't used to trying to put things nicely.

She looked up and saw Dinah inching backwards, her arms crossed defensively in front of her. All at once she realized that the teen was taking her silence and frustration as anger towards her.

"It's kind of like you said before," Helena finally said thoughtfully, desperately fighting the urge to spit the words out quickly. That would sound too much like anger and then Dinah would only close up more.

At her voice, the blonde brought her gaze up to make eye contact.

"Before this whole thing started, you asked me if I wanted to get to know my dad." Helena laughed a little at the thought. "Like you guys even have to ask anymore. He abandoned me just like your mom had to leave you. And he's not really my dad just like she wasn't really your mom."

Helena clenched and unclenched her fists, mentally kicking herself. 'Oh, good job! Just tell her that it's not okay to think of Canary as her mom!'

"What I mean is," she said, starting out slowly, "at the time, you didn't think of her as your mom… because she wasn't around while you were growing up. And that's okay. I don't blame you for not wanting to go with her."

Dinah nodded and looked away.

"It's okay, kid," Helena repeated, stepping forward.

The teen was crying heavily now, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. But she still managed to look up at her to say, "I know."

Just out of sight in the hallway, Alfred quit listening. He had already heard enough to know they were going to be all right. He had known it would end well as soon as Dinah had finally broken her silence.

He took a few steps down the hall toward the med lab to clean up, and nearly ran right into Barbara. She didn't move and raised an eyebrow pointedly as she waited for Alfred to speak.

He straightened his tie and said mildly, "You were eavesdropping on three, while I was eavesdropping on two."

"I'm the Oracle," Barbara said challengingly. "That's how I fight crime."

"And you were fighting crime, Miss Barbara?" Alfred asked disinterestedly, his face carefully neutral.

Barbara cocked her head to the side slightly. "_They_ will be," she said without missing a beat. "I had to be sure."

"It is the job of a good butler to make sure the household runs smoothly," Alfred calmly returned, also not missing a beat.

Barbara smiled broadly. "Touché."

The kindly butler nodded and walked briskly past her to the med lab.

"Alfred?"

He stopped and turned back to her.

"You've always gone above and beyond the call of duty for a good butler," she said, smiling gently. "For as long as I've known you, you've been a father to everyone in your care. I see it, they see it," she paused, gesturing towards the room Alfred had just left.

"And the most amazing part," she said, shaking her head ruefully, "is that you've done it with all of the combined parental issues that seems to be the legacy of the bat."

"The 'most amazing part' is the fact that so many young people have turned tragedy into triumph," he corrected. "That most certainly is _not_ my doing."

Barbara only smiled and shook her head softly at the returned compliment.

He returned her gentle smile and then continued to make his way to the med lab. Dinner would soon be delivered, and he had a half-baked cake in the oven which would be finished just as dinner was consumed.

Pizza and cake. It would be perfect for Dinah's celebration dinner.


	15. Chapter 15

Hey, folks. There'll be one more chapter after this one, and then it'll be done. As always, thanks to SamIAm4 for all the help. And thanks to rain1657 and Lucy76 for reviewing. It means a lot, guys.

* * *

Dinah and Helena were training together, but there didn't seem to be enough light. The sun was on the horizon, just peeking over the skyscrapers. It wasn't that Dinah _wanted_ to train the dark, but it had happened so gradually that she didn't notice it. And now that it was getting dark, she was too embarrassed to say anything. 

It didn't bother Helena, but all Dinah could see was the vague outline of her friend.

Suddenly Helena's fist was coming at her face. She knew that there was some way to counter the attack, but she couldn't remember what.

The first stopped mere centimeters from Dinah's face.

Helena stepped back, and crossed her arms. "That was an easy one, kid. What's going on?"

"I'm, um, having trouble seeing you," Dinah admitted, embarrassedly tucking a piece of hair behind her ear with her bad hand.

The brunette frowned in confusion. "What?"

"The… uh, sun's kind of beginning to go down and I can't see you so well."

The lights suddenly turned on leaving both girls blinking.

"Why are you training in the dark?" Barbara asked, her hand coming away from the light switch and resting on some crumpled blue fabric in her lap. She glanced at the cast on Dinah's hand and then up at her face. "Actually, why are you training at all? I thought we talked about this."

The teen tried to think of an excuse, but was stopped by Helena.

"We remembered what you said about waiting until Dinah's hand was better," the brunette said hastily, putting her hands up palms outward. "We were just working on recognizing different kinds of attacks. There wasn't any contact."

Helena paused for a moment, seeing the blue shirt crumpled in the redhead's lap. "Hey, you getting ready to go out?"

"No," Barbara answered hesitantly, frowning. "Should I be?"

"You've got your favorite shirt," Dinah explained, pointing to her mentor's lap.

"Oh, this!" Barbara said, rolling it into a ball. "No, I think I'm going to throw it out."

"Why?" the blonde asked. "I thought it was your favorite."

"This old thing?" Barbara said, crinkling her nose and looking at it again. "I… don't think I like that shade of blue on me."

"Oh, thank God!" Helena said melodramatically. "That thing's the ugliest impersonation of a shirt I have ever seen!"

"What?" the redhead started, surprised at the vehemence of the outburst. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"It was your favorite," Helena said, shrugging. "For a reason I will _never_ understand."

"It's the blue of the sky on a clear afternoon," Barbara insisted, holding it up in front of her to look at while she defended herself.

"It's toilet bowl cleaner blue," Helena retorted.

"Like the color people's lips turn when they get cold," Dinah added.

"The color they paint curbs with," Helena agreed, nodding.

"Kind of like that blue Listerine."

"Or the community pool after a couple of kids have peed in it."

"I get the picture," Barbara said quickly, holding the shirt at arms length as she wheeled out of the room.

* * *

At school, Dinah avoided the questions of what happened to her arm. Most people accepted that she didn't want to talk about it. Well, there were always some obnoxious people that bothered her about it, but they were jerks anyways and Dinah was used to ignoring them. But she knew that at least one person wasn't going to take that for an answer. 

As the day progressed, she began to dare to hope that Gabby had skipped school that day. Or, even hope that she was sick. 'Well,' she amended, walking through the hallway, 'not sick bad, but it's okay to hope that she's a little sick.'

As she opened up the front doors of the school, she admitted, 'Well, even a lot sick would be better than having to explain to her… you know… as long as it's not, like, deathly ill or something.'

The hall was already beginning to clear out, most of the students not choosing to stick around after classes had let out. There was only the fifteen minutes between the end of the school day and the start of detention and then she would be in the clear… for another few hours, at least. Dinah was almost to the assigned classroom, when she suddenly saw Gabby walking towards her.

Her stomach hit the floor as soon as she saw the friendly and usually welcomed face. Dinah shut her eyes tightly as if that would make her friend disappear and thought, 'Why, why, _why_ can't I catch a stupid break!' Then she opened her eyes and cast the other teen an apologetic smile.

"What happened to your arm?" Gabby asked, her eyebrows raised in a mixture of surprise and concern. "You were fine when I dropped you off at the park on Friday!"

Dinah looked away, flashing back to the conversation she had Barbara had that morning.

"_You can't be serious!" Dinah exclaimed._

_Barbara glanced over at her quickly from the driver's seat and quirked an eyebrow._

_Dinah's scowl deepened. Her guardian was enjoying this entirely too much._

"_The more embarrassing and farfetched the story, the more people are likely to believe you," the redhead repeated, returning her gaze to the road. But it wasn't quick enough to completely hide the smirk._

"_That's because people DON'T make up stories like that!" Dinah said. "And there's a REASON they don't. It's totally stupid!"_

_Barbara snorted unsympathetically._

"_Can't I say that I was… you know… running out of a burning building and just as I got to the door a huge… burning… beam fell down and I shielded a cute little baby with my arm?"_

"_Because that's more believable?" the redhead questioned, raising her eyebrows meaningfully._

"_A puppy, maybe?"_

_Barbara took a deep breath and sighed. "Listen, Dinah..."_

"_Squirrel?"_

"_What's a squirrel doing inside a burning building?" Barbara asked in bewilderment, her previous train of thought completely forgotten._

_The teen sighed rolled her eyes. "Yeah, because THAT'S the important part of this conversation."_

"_Dinah," Barbara said firmly. "We've all gone through it. I've used embarrassing excuses, so has Helena. It's part of the job."_

"_The part no one talks about," Dinah said bitterly, resting her chin in the palm of her good hand and leaning against the window._

"_That's the idea."_

All at once Dinah realized that Gabby was still waiting for an answer. She looked away in embarrassment and mumbled her rehearsed story.

"You took a trip to the Sahara?" Gabby asked, her brow knotted in confusion.

"I slipped on my mascara, okay?" Dinah ground out with a clenched jaw, glancing up only at the end.

To Gabby's credit, she tried hard not to laugh outright at her friend. To her detriment, she failed utterly. "How in the world did you do that?" she asked once she could breathe again.

Dinah scowled and looked away. She could feel the heat rising to her cheeks and she knew that she was never going to live this down. "I dropped the little bottle on the ground and took a step back and must have stepped on it because my foot went out from under me and I fell. Can we drop this now?"

Gabby took a deep breath and kept herself composed for another few moments before falling into a second fit of laughter.

"Yeah, thanks for the moral support," Dinah said, rolling her eyes. Her gaze never made it her friend. She did a double take to try to convince herself that she wasn't seeing what she thought she was seeing.

But there was Rusty, seated under a tree and reading a Looney Tunes comic book.

"Hold on a sec, Gabby," she said, already walking away. "I'll be right back."

She cast a shadow on Rusty, which made him look up just as she approached.

"Hi, Dinah," he chirped. "Are you not in trouble anymore?"

"What?" she asked, frowning. Had Christina actually told him that she had detention?

"Well, Christina says that the older kids have to stay in school longer than us," Rusty explained, rolling up his comic book and standing up. He grabbed his backpack and put it on. "But the only time we ever have to stay late is when we're in trouble."

Dinah laughed. "No, we're not in trouble. Our school just lasts longer."

The little boy screwed up his face in concentration at the thought of this new idea. He stared off into space for a few seconds and then shrugged. "Is Christina done with school?" he finally asked, changing tactics.

"Yeah, she'll be-"

"There she is!" she suddenly heard a masculine voice call out.

Dinah turned around to see five football players surrounding her. Rick and John were each there, as well as the two jocks from detention who had been giving her problems, and one more she didn't recognize. Quickly, she pulled Rusty behind her and hoped that Gabby went for help.

These hopes, too, were dashed when suddenly Gabby pushed her way between two of the players to stand beside her friend. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Dinah couldn't help rolling her eyes. 'She's being totally predictable in all the wrong ways today.'

"What's your problem?" Gabby demanded of the jocks, dropping her bag to the ground.

Dinah quickly tried to take stock of the situation like Barbara had taught her. She could easily take these guys, even with the broken arm, but she couldn't use any of her powers because of all the people watching. And she had to watch out for both Gabby and Rusty. Idly, she hoped Christina didn't show up. Or Patrick. Either of them would probably join in-

Suddenly, Dinah caught a glimpse of Christina just coming through the double doors at the front of the school.

'Oh, you've gotta be kidding me!' she thought in frustration. 'Now _she's_ going to-'

Christina's eyes grew wide at the scene on the other side of the yard. She took two steps forward and then stopped. She stayed still a split second, then turned around and sprinted back into the school.

'-run away?' Dinah frowned, confused. 'Well… at least something's going my way, today. Come on, Dinah. You can do this.'

But what about Barbara? Would she be mad? Dinah sucked in a frightened breath and her heart started pounding at the mere thought.

'Stop it!' she mentally commanded herself, trying to push the thought from her mind. She had to focus if she was going to handle the situation.

"You mess with Rick or John, you mess with the whole team," the unfamiliar jock sneered, taking a step forward.

"That was an accident," Dinah said, looking from person to person. She knew she sounded like she was afraid, but she had to find some way to defuse this before it blew up in her face.

"You hurt the whole team's rep!" John said in disgust.

"Yeah, and needing five people to take on a girl is really gonna help it," Dinah said sarcastically.

John's face turned bright red in anger and embarrassment. But the two players from detention looked a little sheepish as they thought that through.

"You guys better be careful or I'll tell my friend on you!" Rusty said suddenly, moving out from behind Dinah.

The jocks all burst out laughing and Dinah covered her face with her hands. That was SO embarrassing!

Then her heart sank as she realized she had just lost any sort of control of the situation.

Rusty looked from person to person, his face turning red. "I'm telling the truth! I'll tell Commissioner Gordon and he'll take you all to jail!"

All of the jocks just kept laughing, except for Rick. He sobered immediately and looked around himself several times, as if he expected the police commissioner to step out from the shadows.

"How do you know Commissioner Gordon?" he finally asked, his tone clearly implying that he didn't believe what the little boy was saying.

The jocks lost some of their enthusiasm as they saw how serious their friend suddenly looked. They stood up straighter and a couple crossed their arms nervously.

Dinah fingered her cast unconsciously as she watched the scene unfold. She was missing something. How did Rick know of Commissioner Gordon? And why had the threat, especially one as unbelievable as Rusty's, unnerved the normally cocky teenager? She had no idea, but she had the sick feeling that what was missing was the very thing that would get her, Gabby, and Rusty out of the situation.

"Hey, Rick, who's Commissioner Gordon?" John asked. He still wore a smile, but it looked unnatural and Dinah caught just a hint of fear behind it.

"Shut up!" Rick snapped. He turned back to the little boy and, shaking his head slowly, said almost as if convincing himself, "You don't know Commissioner Gordon."

"I do, too!" Rusty said defensively, jutting his jaw out. "I saw a bad guy take my friend Will so Dinah gave us his phone number and Christina called him and he came over and I helped him find the bad guy."

The jocks were getting more and more concerned. Dinah thought they still looked confused, but they knew that whatever the small boy had said had upset their friend. Whatever the running joke about jocks was on campus, they weren't complete idiots.

Rick just stood there for several moments. His eyes had a far off look, and even though he was looking vaguely in Rusty's direction, Dinah knew that he wasn't seeing him. Rick partially turned, and then shook himself, as if only then remembering why he was there.

"That was _you_?" he finally asked softly, including both Rusty and Dinah in his gaze.

Gabby just stood silently, not understanding what was happening, but noticing the sudden lack of menace in his posture.

Dinah nodded and then added, "Yeah, it was me."

Rick opened his mouth and then shut it. When he opened it again, he was cut off before he could say anything.

"What's going on here?" came Barbara's 'Ms. Gordon' voice.

The jocks all whipped around. Dinah looked past them and saw a very pissed Barbara giving everyone the "You touched the Delphi!" glare. Christina stood next to her with an almost desperate look on her face.

Dinah was reminded of a time when she had left a loved one to run away. Christina had gone for help… but hadn't Dinah, too? She had left because staying would only have distracted her mother. Hadn't she helped by running away?

The stern look on Barbara's face brought the teen back to reality. Dinah's heart sank, and her stomach suddenly felt filled by butterflies. Huge, monstrous butterflies that maybe got mutated by the green ooze that had turned four ordinary reptiles into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The silence lengthened awkwardly, but Rick didn't seem to notice. In fact, he didn't seem concerned about Barbara's presence at all. He slowly brought his gaze upwards to meet the teacher's, as if it was taking a supreme effort to focus on the here and now.

"Nothing," he finally said quietly.

The tone he used confused Dinah. It wasn't an automatic answer to try to get out of trouble, and it wasn't the flippant kind of answer people usually gave teachers when they knew they were lying and they knew that the teacher knew they were lying… When she caught a glimpse of the lost look on his face as he met Barbara's gaze, Dinah knew that he had been sincere.

Rick looked around himself, making eye contact with each of his friends in turn, and then put his hands in his pockets and walked away slowly as if he was in a daze.

The rest of the football players looked at each other in confusion. But now there was a teacher on the scene and the odds were turning against them more and more as each second passed. And Rick's odd behavior had them disconcerted, so they stared at each other for a few more seconds and then jogged off after him.

Dinah felt some of the tension drain away from her as they left, but she hadn't really been worried about them, anyway. She risked a tentative glance at her guardian to try to judge how angry she was.

Before she could, Christina drew in a ragged breath and just about tackled her little brother.

"Rusty!" she said, on her knees in the grass, hugging the little boy close.

He quickly pulled away from the embrace, his little body rigid with embarrassment. "Christina!" he cried in outraged indignation. "Don't do that!"

"Sorry," Christina said, wiping at her eyes.

"You okay?" Barbara asked her, reaching for her arm.

"Fine," the teen said hastily, straightening and pulling her arm out of reach. "Come on, Rusty. Let's go home."

The little boy brightened immediately, and got his backpack off of the ground and put it awkwardly on one shoulder. "Can we go to the park on the way home?"

Christina looked down at her brother as they walked away and said sincerely, "Anything you want."

"She's not okay," Gabby commented, watching the brother and sister go.

Dinah shook her head, her gaze still focused on the receding pair as well. "She was powerless to help her family. That kinda thing doesn't go away for a while."

"No, it doesn't," Barbara agreed, looking at her protégé intently.

The teen wilted under the scrutiny and checked her watch nervously. It was almost time for her detention. She started to say so, and then stopped herself. She had to ask. It would nag her the entire time and she might not ever the courage to try again if she didn't ask right at that moment…

"Are you mad?" she blurted out.

Barbara raised her eyebrows at the sudden outburst. "For what?" she asked calmly.

"Well, the fight," Dinah said, staring at the ground. She paused and then quickly added, "I didn't mean to, but I didn't see them coming, and then Rusty was there, and I really didn't start it this time, but two of the football players said that they were going to start something and that it wasn't over, and I know I should have found some way to keep them from it, and I tried, but-"

Barbara reached over and touched the teen's arm, afraid to say anything for fear she would speak too harshly.

Dinah immediately stopped talking and looked at Barbara apologetically and hopefully.

"It's all right," the redhead assured her. "I know you didn't start it. And I really don't think you have anything more to worry about from them."

"Why?" Gabby asked curiously.

Barbara shifted her gaze to the curly blonde and explained. "Rusty told Dinah about a strange man at his school who had taken one of his friends. The circumstances sounded suspicious, so I called my father. The boy, Will, was missing and Rusty was able to give the police the details about the kidnapper that they needed to find him."

Gabby just looked at her blankly, and Dinah asked, "but what does that have to do with it?"

"Do you remember the original fight you had with Rick?" Barbara asked, a strange gleam in her eye.

Dinah shook her head.

"Rick said in the principal's office that he had been talking to John about the pre-game tailgate party he couldn't go to, because his parents wanted him to pick up his little brother."

Dinah began to get a strange feeling and somehow knew exactly what Barbara would say next.

"Rick never did pick up his little brother. He decided to teach his parents a lesson, and went to the party anyway. When he finally showed up at the school, Will was already gone."


	16. Chapter 16

Okay, now I all know you're waiting to hear the always redundant, ever creative excuse for the delayed posting of this chapter… would you believe that I forgot I didn't post it? Heh, sorry about that. Thanks to rain1657 and redladyreba for the reviews. Means a lot.

* * *

The day was warm and clear as Dinah walked down the side walk on her way home. It was perfect daydreaming weather… the kind of day when it was a sin to be indoors.

Dinah's eyes suddenly widened as she realized the phrase that had just passed through her head. It wasn't that the saying itself was bad... just where she had heard it. Her foster mother back in Opal had often used it as an excuse to get Dinah out of the house for a few hours. The full saying went: "This type of a day is a gift from God, and it's a sin to be indoors."

She stopped walking, closed her eyes tightly, and clenched her fists at her sides for a few moments, wishing she could wash away the influence of her foster parents. But she had internalized their words, if not their thoughts, somewhere deep inside of her and didn't know how to get them out.

Idly, she wondered if cleaning her mouth out with soap would do the trick.

And then her heart grew heavy as she wondered if there was a similar ritual for cleaning her mind and soul.

She adjusted the straps of her backpack, moving them higher on her shoulders and then looked upwards in preparation to resume her homeward trek.

Dinah stopped mid stride as she realized she was back at the cemetery.

She laughed a little and rolled her eyes at herself. Really, she should have seen it coming. It's not like the cemetery had moved any time soon. If it was on the way home from school the last time she had walked home, then it would be again.

'Duh,' she thought to herself.

Remembering what had happened the last time she had stayed in that spot for too long, Dinah looked upwards into the branches of the trees and looked for the squirrel that had thrown the acorns at her. It was there, all right, balancing on a small branch that looked way too small to hold that squirrel. It was relaxed on all fours and calmly watching her.

"Truce?" Dinah asked, raising an eyebrow.

Predictably, the squirrel remained silent.

"I'll take that as a yes," she said, giving her full attention back to the gate of the cemetery.

For a moment she considered going in, but she didn't feel like it.

Really, there wasn't any reason to. Black Canary wasn't even in there. There was just an empty casket and a head stone.

'It's so typical!' Dinah thought in sudden anger, clenching her fists at her sides. 'Even when she's dead, she's not here!'

Carolyn Lance hadn't been a black canary; she had been a scarecrow. She had all the appearance of life but was just hay on the inside. Her only function had been to scare away all of the dark shapes coming to prey on the defenseless.

And now all Dinah had was a list of her accomplishments and a hole in her heart where a mother might have been.

Black Canary had definitely lived the life, though. Dinah had spent countless hours pouring through Barbara's database as she researched the heroes who had come before her. Of course, that was back before she had realized that the Black Canary was her m- Well, back before she knew who she was, anyways.

How many people's lives had been touched by Canary… only because she gave up on her daughter?

It wasn't fair.

'Is that what makes a hero?' Dinah wondered despairingly, looking up into the clouds. 'Choosing one life over another? Or even many lives over just one that you're supposed to take care of.'

Helena's mother hadn't. But, then, Helena's mother hadn't been a hero.

Only… maybe she was. Much more so than Black Canary.

Dinah shook her head bitterly as if she could knock the ideas into some sense of order. Black Canary and Catwoman seemed to be opposite sides of the same hero. Maybe that was why they had never gotten along. They were alike in all the wrong ways, and polar opposites in the ways that had mattered. It was a wonder that Barbara could be friends with them both.

The teen's jaw dropped open in sudden realization.

'Oh, duh!' she thought, smacking her forehead with her good hand. 'Of course Barbara was friends with both of them. She's both of them all at once. She's the hero with the drive for justice _and_ the mother who would never leave her child.'

Actually, when she thought about it, so was Helena. Sure, she had inherited her mother's need for adrenaline and thrills, but she had also inherited her mother's sense of loyalty and family… along with her father's thirst for justice.

No wonder Black Canary and Catwoman had seemed the embodiments of two sides of the same hero!

Once again, Dinah adjusted the straps of her backpack with her good hand and walked towards the clock tower. She had been out long enough.

It was time to go home.

* * *

Helena ran as quickly as she could to the end of the building. At the last possible moment, she put her foot on the very edge of the roof and dove off into space. 

The wind rushed passed her ears and through her hair. The necessity to get to the club fueled the adrenaline and made the moment of near flight that much sweeter.

The sound of Barbara's sigh coming through the comms just barely registered above the wind.

: They're gone, Huntress.:

The roof of the next building was quickly rising to meet her. Helena stomped her landing furiously and straightened, running her hand through her hair in frustration.

"How long did they take this time?" she asked, even though she wasn't sure she wanted to know. She had a bad feeling that she was going to be sorry she asked.

There was a pause before Barbara answered: Three minutes and thirty-three seconds.:

See? She knew she shouldn't have asked.

"How the hell are we supposed to catch these guys, Oracle?" she demanded, kicking the short wall on the edge of the roof.

: They'll make a mistake eventually: Barbara said, for what had to be the thousandth time. : They always do.:

She shouldn't have asked that, either.

"Them screwing up doesn't mean a thing if I'm still on my way to the club," Helena said angrily. "I thought you said installing taps on the video cameras would help!"

: They did help: Barbara said defensively.

"Yeah, you got to tell me that they left, instead of me getting there too late to make a difference." Helena rolled her eyes. "Big help."

: They'll make a mistake: Barbara insisted firmly. There was a pause and then she continued wryly: We just have to hope that they don't kill anyone until then.:

Helena felt her anger disappear at the resignation in her mentor's voice. She ran a hand through her hair once again and sat on the edge of the roof.

"Three minutes and thirty seconds to rob every single person in a club," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "It would take a guy just off Survivor longer to eat a double bacon cheeseburger."

: Three minutes and thirty-_three_ seconds: Barbara corrected automatically.

"Whatever," Helena said, rolling her eyes and pushing herself up. "I'm heading over to the warehouse district."

The sound of clicking keys actually stopped as Helena leapt up back the way she had come.

: What: Barbara asked, nonplussed.

Helena could even picture her frowning and looking over the monitors at nothing the redhead tried to figure it out.

: Why in the world are you going to the warehouse district:

"There's _always_ something happening in warehouses. When do you ever see bad guys killing one another or kidnapping someone or making their master plan in anything _other_ than warehouses with vague looking wooden boxes?"

Helena had crossed six rooftops, one alley, two main streets, and circumvented a rooftop swimming pool before the sound of clicking keys resumed. Apparently, Barbara had decided not to comment on that.

'She knows I'm right,' she thought to herself smugly. She had only taken a few more steps forward when the miniature speakers in her earrings crackled to life.

: Huntress, Reese has triggered the bat ring.:

Maybe her night was looking up, after all.

"Where?" she asked, slowing to a stop.

: The club that was just robbed.:

Maybe not.

Helena sighed. She wasn't in the mood to talk about these guys. On the other hand, maybe he'd have some new information.

With this in mind, she moved quickly and was overlooking the club within minutes. Reese had chosen an alley on the other side of the street. His arms were crossed in front of him and he leaned his back against the wall. He was trying to look relaxed and nonchalant, and was failing miserably. Even from her perch across the street and up several stories, she could read the tension in his body language.

'That guy needs to learn how to relax,' she thought, shaking her head at him. Since that wasn't going to happen any time soon, she'd settle for scaring him. No one was passing by, so she wasn't likely to get a distraction.

'Can't surprise him,' she thought, considering. She was quiet, but there was no way she was going to get the drop on him when he knew to expect her. Suddenly, a grin somewhere between wicked and playful spread across her face. 'Actually, that gives me an idea.'

She looked around herself and leapt to the roof of the building next to her, four stories higher. She slowly backed away to the other side of the building and ran forward to make a flying leap to the four story building across the street. To her ears, she made a racket, but she had learned enough about normal hearing to know that no one else would hear her. She slowly crept forward and peeked over the edge to double-check Reese's location.

He was doggedly looking straight in front of him, expecting her to somehow manage to sneak up behind him. His back was against the wall of the building across from the one Helena was perching on.

Grinning, she put her hands in her pockets and stepped forward, letting gravity pull her to the ground.

Reese literally jumped and would have fallen backwards had his back not been against the wall.

"Wow, Reese," she said, a raised eyebrow replacing the grin. "You really need to switch to decaf."

Reese's gaze went back and forth between Huntress and the roof above him several times before settling on the brunette standing in front of him.

"What?" she asked innocently, her hands still in her pockets. "You said to land in front of you next time."

Reese just shook his head and took a few seconds to get his heart rate back to normal. "We found the murderer beaten in his own home, along with an unharmed boy. You come out in the day now?"

Helena wrinkled her nose. "I'm the Huntress, Detective, not Batman. I won't burst into flames in the daylight."

: Bruce never burst into fl-:

"But that wasn't me," she finished quickly. "Dinah solved that case."

"Really?" Reese asked, his eyes widening in surprise.

"Hey," Huntress started protectively, "Dinah's just as-"

"That's not what I meant," Reese interrupted. "That guy… he was beat pretty badly… I just thought…"

At Helena's pointed glare, he paused.

"Look, never mind," he said, shaking his head. "What do you know about the Animal Gang?"

"Only that they're fast." Helena shook her head in frustration. "I can never get there in time to stop them."

"What if I could get you on the inside?"

Now he definitely had her attention.

: How can he get you on the inside: she heard Barbara ask.

"How can you get me on the inside?" she repeated, watching him carefully.

"We think we know who's in charge of the Animal Gang," he said. "Now, there's not enough evidence to convict. Not even enough to get a warrant to search the warehouse."

: And not enough to get an undercover cop to go in: Barbara finished.

"Who is it?" Helena asked.

Reese shook his head. "This has got to be by the book. You're in all the way or you're out on this one, Huntress."

: I don't like this: Barbara said. : I'll accept that you don't wear a mask, but I don't want you going undercover. That's what got Carolyn killed. Come back to base and let's see what we can find on our own, first.:

Helena crossed her arms in front of her and frowned slightly. She hated ultimatums and she hated being given commands. But the situation intrigued her.

"You don't have to decide right now," Reese offered, thinking all of her annoyance was directed at him. "Meet me a couple of nights from now and we'll talk it over some more."

Helena nodded. "Good night, Detective."

And then she was leaping up, back the way she had come.

She knew Barbara didn't like it, but Helena's instincts were telling her that going undercover was the only way these guys would be caught. They were too clean and too efficient to mess up, and the police might never get enough evidence on them to arrest. The only way these guys were going down is if they were caught in the act. And the only way they were going to be caught in the act, is if someone on the inside gave the police the heads up.

A week or two ago, Helena would have given Barbara's judgment more worth. But the last time Helena had trusted Barbara's judgment over her own instincts, Black Canary had almost taken Dinah.

And that mistake had almost sent Dinah over the edge.

No, this time Helena would be sure to trust her instincts… no matter what anyone else might have to say. She was going to stop the Animal Gang.

* * *

Barbara watched the spectacular sunset through a window in the dining room. Dinah was sitting across from her, but they had both decided not to wait for Helena. She had a lot of errands to run since she would be spending the majority of her evenings working undercover in the Animal Gang. 

Barbara had to admit that it wasn't a bad plan. She had spent most of the night trying to come up with _anything_ that would keep Helena from having to go undercover, but there was literally nothing. Helena had the skills to make herself an asset to the gang, and she had the genuine attitude that would mask her ulterior motives.

At first, Barbara had been concerned that it would give Reese too much of an opportunity to discover Helena's identity, but this had proved not to be the case. Helena would need to be working under a cover identity, anyway. They would keep as many of the details as close to her real life as possible, but since they needed to catch the Animal Gang in the act, Helena would not be wearing a wire and Reese would not hear her talking about herself.

Satisfied that she had thought out most of the problems, Barbara turned her attention to Dinah and had to stifle a sigh. The teen was staring out the window again. Barbara watched as she slowly pushed her favorite, Alfred's famous spaghetti, around the circumference of her plate. True, she didn't seem as despondent as she had for the last several weeks, but she still wasn't talking.

Barbara was afraid that Dinah had regressed into distrust… and that had certainly gone on long enough.

"Dinah, are you all right?" the redhead asked.

"Fine," she replied distractedly.

"How's school?"

"Fine."

"How's Gabby doing?"

"Fine."

Monosyllabic answers. Never a good sign. Maybe she was-

Barbara cut that train of thought off quickly. Speculating and making assumptions on Dinah's behavior was what had caused the problems last time.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked instead, making her question as specific as possible while still open ended. The last thing she needed was to ask a question that the teen could answer 'yes' or 'no' or 'fine'.

Of course, she could still answer 'nothing'…

Dinah finally looked over. "The Powerpuff Girls."

Barbara blinked several times as she tried to think of what possibly could sound like what she thought she heard. Finally, she shook her head and asked, "What?"

"The Powerpuff Girls," Dinah repeated. "Have you ever thought about it? We're _just_ like them!"

Barbara, always the articulate intellectual, managed to stutter, "Huh?"

"Think about it," the teen said, gaining momentum. "Okay, they have a redhead, blonde, and brunette, and so do we. The redhead's the leader, the blonde is the happy one, and the brunette is the one that everyone's afraid to mess with."

Here Dinah paused and looked at her guardian expectantly. Barbara raised an eyebrow but nodded at her to continue.

"Okay, here's the kicker: they're all taken care of by the professor, who knows _everything_ and is way older than the rest of them."

Barbara laughed out loud, wondering what Alfred would think of the comparison.

"Helena did say that she'd be Buttercup," Dinah reminded her, grinning.

"That she did," Barbara agreed, smiling. She would let the comparison between herself and an animated cartoon character go for the time being. She was just happy that Dinah was still being open, and that she had been lost in happy (albeit odd) thoughts.

As Barbara thought about it more, she realized that there were worse things with which to be compared. Didn't the Powerpuff Girls always save Townsville? Wasn't there always a happy ending?

'And,' Barbara reflected, watching a very-pleased-with-herself Dinah finish her spaghetti, 'it's certainly good to have Bubbles back.'


End file.
